Living on Orchids...

[Karl Günter Wünsch]

http://www.my-photohome.de/naturescapes/hopper_2011_05_18_225_bp.jpg

Some time ago I posted some images of insects living on orchids. Finally I got a nice addition to that series - although I still need to identify both participants in detail.
Shot taken on 2011-05-18 close to Les Mayons in the Massif des Maures, Departement Var, southern France. Canon 7D, 100mm f/2.8L IS USM, Berlebach MiniMaxi tripod, f/8, 1/15 sec, ISO 100. Slight crop and cloned out one of the flowers of the orchid which was already decaying.
I'm especially angry with myself not being able to determine the orchid but on the field in question there are at least 5 different kinds of Serapias and the one shown here might as well be a hybrid between two of those...

[Jay Sheinfield]

Cool comp. Great BG and colors..........on my monitor it looks like more DOF to get the entire head sharp would be even better.........love how the lines of the antenna mimic the those of the Orchid...

[Jonathan Ashton]

Karl I am very impressed I love the composition, I too however have a slight reservation over DOF, the head is just a little bit soft - but wow that is some image!

[Jerry van Dijk]

Hi Karl, very nicely composed with those long antennae! I would be tempted to crop off some of the right. The grasshopper looks like a Tettigonia species.

[Steve Maxson]

Hi Karl. I like how my eye goes to the reddish flowers, but then I notice the grasshopper looming up out of the green background. You got quite a bit of this within your DOF at only f/8 and the sharpness of the head is not something I would have noticed had it not been mentioned above. While the head looks OK to me, you might try some additional selective sharpening there to see if it makes a difference. You might also consider cropping about 3 cm from the right. Overall, this is very well done.

[Saravana Gurusamy]

This is superb... what a setting. I might crop an inch on the left and add it to the right and maybe boost the brightness just a tad bit. But overall a wonderful shot! TFS

[OvidiuCavasdan]

I like the pose, smaller aperture and a bit more dof on insect would have been nice.... but would the BG looked the same? Regarding DOF this works for me and I like the bg. Agree about some crop of the right side. I think this is very well done.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Karl,
Can't add much to the above suggestions and recommendations for tweaks.......but all in all....very well done!

[Karl Günter Wünsch]

Cool comp. Great BG and colors..........on my monitor it looks like more DOF to get the entire head sharp would be even better.........love how the lines of the antenna mimic the those of the Orchid...

Thanks for the comments, as for the head - that's sort of a problem, the insect was moving it's head (probably due to the long antennae) ever so slightly and it just had turned around and moved slightly forward when the antenna was finally pointing in the right direction. I have other shots from it where the antenna is pointed downwards where I got the head sharper but those aren't even close in terms of composition.

I might try and do a focus stack of two of those shots (just the head) one day - but I might add that the head doesn't show much in terms of features on this specimen anyway...