Another Halloween Pennant

[Allen Sparks]

Canon 40D, Canon 300 f4 plus Tamron SP Pro 1.4x teleconverter, monopod
ISO 400, f13, 1/200s, natural light

Okay, another one of these dragonflies. But I am thinking about entering this shot in my club's upcoming competition so I thought I would get everyone's valuable input here. Thanks for any comments....

[Julie Kenward]

Allen, this is great! I think you could do two things to make it even stronger, though. I'd go with another slight round of sharpening - it feels a little bit soft throughout the df. I'd also either put him a little more on a diagonal or I'd do some CCW rotation and get that abdomen straight up and down in the frame.

Beautiful BG and that "in your face" attitude should sway some votes your way!

[Mike Fuhr]

Allen, this is great! I think you could do two things to make it even stronger, though. I'd go with another slight round of sharpening - it feels a little bit soft throughout the df. I'd also either put him a little more on a diagonal or I'd do some CCW rotation and get that abdomen straight up and down in the frame.

Beautiful BG and that "in your face" attitude should sway some votes your way!

Very nice -- I'm OK w/the dof and like the overall feel of the image although I was thinking about suggesting that you rotate it a bit in the other direction (away from straight up and down) so you add some additional interest! :)

[Ken Childs]

Hey Allen, This is really good!

I like the pose as is and wouldn't do any rotating. Rotating it at all, IMHO, would make the feet/head look wrong. It does look soft so more sharpening is needed. There are a few spots that will probably become more obvious when sharpened that may need to be cloned over. Lightening up the eyes, especially the right side that appears to be in shadow could help and parts of the BG look kind of blotchy.

I don't know what format will be used in the competition so some of the above may or may not apply.

[Bob Miller]

HI Allen....good points made by ken.....mostly needs sharpening IMO

[Paul Lagasi]

Allen what a beautiful angle, wings in great position, sharp and lovely colors..wish we had this dragonfly up here...

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Allen,
Well....luckily for you I do a lot of judging on the CC circuit. If it is allowed in your rules......the repost shows what some things I would implement. I lightened the body, face, eyes, thorax (this is probably allowed as I used a levels layer but could also be done with dodging and then fading) Probably not allowed in a true nature comp is the eye fix and clean up of specular highlights in the wings.....although since I used a #2 clone tool.....I have dust bunnies bigger than that! Crop off top, sharpened, noise ninja on BG and blurring......little contrast punch. What say you?

Oh...BTW.....you impressed this judge! Very in your face comp!!!

[Allen Sparks]

Thanks everyone for all the great suggestions! I'll have to take all these in and see how I want to rework this...I appreciate all the advise.

Roman, thanks for reworking the image. I think you added some punch to the shot. I'll see what I can do with my lesser post processing skills. I'm worried about sharpening too much as my club's judges usually aren't as demanding in that regard as folks here at BPN - you get hammered for over-sharpening though. I like your rework and the lighting changes also helped I think. The images will be projected on a screen for the competition.

[Caroline Darmo]

Hi Allen, I like Roman's repost, makes the image pop! Great shot!

[Jonathan Ashton]

Great shot Allen, I agree with the suggestions and like the repost, would consider even a little more sharpening on the forewings if possible.