Female Banded Demoiselle

[Mat Bingham]

Well here goes this is my first post. If I haven't done something the right way with posting can someone let me know. This photo was taken near my home in Cheshire England. Its part of a project I am working on to photograph the wildlife on a 2km stretch of river through the seasons. I have been working on this project for a number of years. The photo was taken with a Canon 30D, 300mm F4 IS canon lens, ISO 640, 1/400 second and f7.0 aperture. Shot in Aperture priority mode. Comments etc. most welcome.

111791

[Ken Childs]

Hi Mat, welcome to the Macro forum!

This is a good first post and your subject matter is especially nice. The colors of the damsel are wonderful and the background looks great! In the orientation as it is now, I would prefer more canvas below so you could make this a portrait crop but I think with a little work, you can make a nice landscape crop. If it were mine, I'd rotate it a bit clockwise and then crop in much tighter.

Here's a quick (and sloppy) rework of the image. Besides being rotated and cropped, I used Photoshop's shadows/highlight tool to brighten up some of the darker areas of the damsel and then used the smudge tool to extend the 2 stems in the upper right corner. Some ares looked a tiny bit soft so I gave it another round of sharpening. I also cloned out the tiny black speck on the right stem. In a perfect world you wouldn't want those leaves behind the damsel but this is a strong subject so they really don't bother me at all. I don't know which editing software you're using but whatever it is should have similar tools.

I'm looking forward to other shots from your river project!

111797

[Bob Miller]

Hi Matt....This is a really fine image and you should be proud of it. The sharpness is great and the bg is well handled. I also like the color palette. Ken makes some good suggestions about a possible rotation and crop ....but as is...its fine!

[Steve Maxson]

Hi Matt. I'm happy to see you posting here in Macro! You have a beautiful subject with good head-to-tail sharpness. Ken has already covered my thoughts regarding tightening the crop and brightening some of the darker areas. The only other thing I would suggest would be to run some noise reduction on the background to smooth it out. All of these suggestions are merely tweaks to an already strong image. :S3: Keep them coming!

[Mat Bingham]

Thank you for your kind comments. The photo was uploaded pretty much as it was taken. I take your points about the rotation and cropping. Thank you again.:S3: