European Skipper - Thymelicus lineola

[Doug Hitchcox]

There were no birds around the other day so I gave macro a try for the first time. These skippers seem fairly common so I'm sorry if this is like posting a House Sparrow photo but it seemed like the best place to start. I am really curious to hear what people think about the composition of this; I tried lots of verticals and none seemed as pleasing, personally. Also does this DOF work or should I have just stopped down and gotten the whole butterfly tack sharp?

Canon EOS 30D
EF70-200mm f/2.8L USM @73mm w/ 37mm of Extension Tubes
1/25 f/9 ISO250

[Nicki Gwynn Jones]

Hi Doug,
I don't know anything about macro photography so you might want to take these comments with a pinch of salt...:D
Personally I love the composition as there is nothing to distract the viewer from the subject. I am fine with the narrow depth of field as this does encourage the viewer to look exactly where you want them to but others may disagree.
Best,
Nicki

[Julie Kenward]

Welcome to Macro, Doug! Don't worry about content here - we'll don't mind seeing any image regardless of the "sparrow aspect."

When composing for a macro image you might try thinking about how to best fill the space with the subject matter while still leading the eye throughout the image. One way to do this is by putting the perch on a diagonal across the image with the insect sitting close to one of the corners while still in the ROT's position. For instance, in this image, if you had tilted the camera so the head area was more towards the ULC and the wings more towards the LRC you would have taken up more of the negative space and created an image that causes the viewer to move from one end of the photograph to the other. Of course, this is only one way to go...each image is different!

I like what you have here...although it feels a little bit overexposed. Try bumping your midtone slider in levels to the right just a bit to take the brightness off that front wing area and see if you like that better. You had good DOF with a beautiful OOF background - I'd say you chose a good combination of speed and aperture here.

Looking forward to your next image!

[Desmond Chan]

As mentioned, the image as presented looks a bit bright. I also found it could use some cropping. A bit more sharpening should be able to help showcase the details better, too.

My $0.02.

[Doug Hitchcox]

Thanks for comments and help. Its been fun to try something new and I appreciate the help on this board to improve the pictures. I just took some photos of a sulfur and tried applying all the recommendations, I'll post it later.

Thanks again