No escape!

[Morkel Erasmus]

I'm revisiting some of the scorpion shots I took on our hike of the Fish River Canyon in Namibia. Here is a previous version of this shot: http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php?t=39467

How does this tight composition fare? I wanted to get closer to the action since the original shot was full frame.

Techs:
Canon 1000D with Tamron 70-300mm Di Tele-Macro on Macro setting @ 180mm focal length
f11 @ 1/640 SS @ ISO 800

[Joe Brown]

Hi Morkel, maybe a crop halfway between this and the previous post which shows the whole circular tail of the scorpian as this is the trademark feature of this critter. I like the different tones or colours in these shots.

Joe

[Jerry van Dijk]

Hi Morkel, amazing beast! I prefer the original post. Because of the cut-offs of the scorpion, this version is a little messy IMO. It would have been nice if the head of the beetle he's holding would have been IF.

[Julie Kenward]

I totally agree with the others - that curled tail is the neatest part of the image IMO and without an in focus face on the beetle, the closer crop only exagerates it more. I'd crop the first image in tighter and go with it.

[Morkel Erasmus]

thanks guys

this is actually a closer crop of that first image :)

[Vida van der Walt]

Hi Morkel. Great action and a very special sighting. I still prefer the original post but if you want to crop closer I would only crop to remove the back leg so that the image ends just after the 3rd leg.:)

[Ignacio Yufera]

Morkel, I also prefer the original version (which is a superb shot); in this one it takes a while to figure out what's what, and the beautiful curving tail is lost.

[Callie de Wet]

I like the detail, will have to have a look at the original! Contrast is very nice!

[Morkel Erasmus]

thanks everyone!!