Tow little beetles doing what beetles sometimes do

[Stephen Stephen]

I created this image on Friday evening. I'm not sure which species these were but they were very small (~2-3mm long). They were on a milk weed leaf.

Canon 40D, Sigma 105mm F2.8 Macro and SmartFlash Ringflash on Manfroto tripod.
1/30 seconds, F 13, ISO 800

Image rotated from horizontal and cropped to about 40% of full frame. Unfortunately I got some flash glare on thorax of one and the elytra of the other beetle. Should I try and clone it out?

[Julie Kenward]

Stephen, this is a great composition! Love the leaf on a diagonal and the beetles are very close to the ROT's position. If you wanted to get really picky I'd say to clone out or tone down the hot marks on their face & head a bit, and get rid of the white stuff in the LRC just to the right of your signature. Everything else is really nice!

[Alfred Forns]

Love the composition Clean and strong with high appeal !!! Suggested tweaks will enhance, on any image there is no limit to how much could actually be done :) Love it as presented and will look impressive printed large !!! Big Congrats !!!

[Steve Maxson]

Hi Stephen. I like the behavior depicted and the comp. I would wish for a little more DOF on the head of the upper beetle and I would suggest trying to remove the large specular highlight (a challenge when photographing shiny beetles :) ). These are a type of lady beetle. There are many species, but these look like Brachiacantha ursina to me.

[Stephen Stephen]

Thank you Jules, Alfred and Steve for you kind words and suggestions. I've cloned out the highlights and the white spot as suggested.

Steve, I agree about the DOF adn thanks for the possible ID. There seemed to be a lot of them around a few days ago so perhaps I'll get a chance to try again.