Grasshopper III

[WIlliam Maroldo]

Sony A850~ Sony 100mm F2.8 Macro~Sony HVL-F58AM~ISO 400~1/320 sec~F14~HH~manual exposure~10-17-2010~Brazos Bend State Park, Texas~CS5
Been taking plenty of macros, but here at BPN I can only post 1 per day (at Macro at least) so I'll stick with grasshoppers a bit longer. Comments and critique welcomed. regards~Bill

my website (http://avianimagesource.com)

[Steve Maxson]

Hi Bill. You have good sharpness and DOF on your grasshopper plus a nice background. I also like the diagonal of the grasshopper's body. I think that if you were to carefully clone some of the specular highlights on the grasshopper's body, this image would go up another notch or two. :)

[Ken Childs]

Hey Bill, this one is looking really good! I can see that the new flash is definitely helping out. Those highlights should be relatively easy to soften with the clone tool or a soft paintbrush. If you have the canvas or even if you don't, I'd like to see more room on top and less on the right so the head is closer to a ROT position. The advantage of a clean and simple BG is that it's easy to create more canvas if necessary. Overall this is very well done! :cheers:

[Julie Brown]

Bill, I agree with above comments. I really like the detail on the grasshopper. Did you use any flash exposure compensation? I just got a new flash unit myself, and am learning how to use it.:D

[WIlliam Maroldo]

Hi Julie. I am no expert in use of flash in macro, I am a novice as well and I'm sure Steven, Roman or Ken could help. I am so used to shooting manual with Avian subjects, that I typically use the flash at full power, and thottle it back by raising the shutter-speed. In avian this usually makes sense to me, since the subject is at a distance and you usually need as much light as possible. However, although the technique works with macro, using flash compensation with aperture priority definitely legnthens the time needed to replace batteries, and I'm using it more. regards~Bill