Volucella inanis

[Galliani Carlo]

hello everyone
volucella inanis on eryngyum amethystum

1/160s f/10.0 at 180.0mm iso400

http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/2319/volucellainanis02pbase.jpg

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Carlo,
Beautiful light and the colors and comp look good. I may take a bit off the bottom......eliminating the green on the bottom......but DOF and perhaps proportionally off the right or left......will just tighten up the comp a bit more for me. Overall.....very nicely done!

[Julie Kenward]

I disagree with Roman - I'd leave the crop as is because I think if you take more off you'll be chopping into the center of the flower and I'd prefer that to stay intact. I like the radial look of the petals going off in all directions and the diagonal placement of the insect is really nice. If anything, I think I'd paint a little green over the whiter areas of the BG and make it more uniform that way.

[Steve Maxson]

Hi Carlo. Outstanding sharpness on the fly! I also like the diagonal orientation of the fly's body and the off-center placement of the flower. Very well done. :cheers:

[Norm Dulak]

I'm with Julie, and would avoid further cropping to keep as much of the flower as possible. But I also have to comment on dof. I think the flower should preferably be sharper.

For most macro work, and for this example also, f/10 IMO is generally not sufficient. My experience has been to stop down my lens to at least f/22, and preferably to f/32, as long as distracting elements in the background are not thereby brought into play. If stopping down the lens reduces shutter speed too severely, I increase the ISO level and deal with possible resulting noise later using one of the many available remedies for that problem.

But the bee is splendid, and I'm very pleased that this image has been offered to us. :) And there may well be others who actually enjoy the contrast between the very sharp insect and the muted flower beneath it.

The composition is excellent, and the angle of the bee and the radiating flower petals add to a generally very favorable impression.

Thanks for sharing.

[Galliani Carlo]

thanks evryone for comments :)
I disagree with Norm for stop down F 22 or f32
i think if the subject ia parallel with camera, f10 to f16,are sufficient with a better BG
if the subjets is not parallel then it's another thing

[Ken Childs]

Hi Carlo, the fly looks sharp where it needs to be and in this case, the DOF works extremely well....the separation between the sharp fly and OOF flower looks great, IMHO. Well done! :)