Four spotted chaser

[Jerry van Dijk]

Going through some images from last year I came across this Four spotted chaser (Libellula quadrimaculata). I liked how the reflecting highlights suggest the presence of water and add some interest to the otherwise empty BG, but can imagine that some may find them disturbing and distracting from the main subject. What do you think? Jpeg straight out of the camera, slightly cropped for composition.

Nikon D7000, Nikkor 200mm micro F/4 ED, handheld, ISO-400, f/4.2, 1/1000 sec.

[OvidiuCavasdan]

While I like the pose and dont mind the dragonfly is facing away from camera and also like the yellows against the blue BG...yes I do find the highlights distracting, esp the ones top and bottom right. Dont know the weather conditions (wind) but I think you could have tried a slower ss and stopping down for more dof.

[Steve Maxson]

Hi Jerry. I like the pose and the simplicity of the blue background. You have good sharpness within your DOF, but I would wish for more DOF to get the head and tip of the abdomen sharp. Looking at your specs, you might have been able to decrease ss to 1/500 and thereby increase the f/stop a little. You might try some additional selective sharpening on the head and abdomen to see if it helps. Here's another vote for the highlights on the right side being distracting. :S3: If this was mine, I would probably crop from the right to remove those highlights and clean up the LLC.

[Ken Childs]

Hey Jerry, this isn't bad for straight out of the camera but I think it could be improved with some PP work. The focus looks like it's right at the base of the wings so the head and the abdomen look a bit soft. I think some contrast and selective sharpening would go a long way in improving this. If those reflecting highlights were more evenly spaced all around the edges, I might vote to keep them but my preference would be to crop in tighter (no surprise there :bg3:) and to make the BG solid blue. Maybe a white vignette would look good. :S3:

[Jerry van Dijk]

Thanks all! This was one of the first trips with the DSLR and macro lens. That's probably why I goofed up with the DOF and focal point (a tipical case of "point and shoot" :e3). I'll try that white vignette!

[Brendan Dozier]

Nice one, Jerry, beautiful dragonfly, and like the pose, details and POV. Good suggestions above.