midge (or alien -- I'd go either way)

[Celeste Painter]

This guy was TINY. I believe it's a midge. He's perched on a pine needle. I've had my macro lens for less than a month so please feel free to comment if there's something that could be improved.

gear: 5dm2, sigma 180 f3.5 macro
settings: manual mode, 1/250 @ f/14, iso 400, flash did not fire--I had the flash and a softbox mounted but was so bright I didn't use them for this shot, handheld, manual focus
post processing in lightroom: cropped to about 1/2 original size; add: clarity, vibrance; adjusted tone curve, profile correction, sharpening, noise reduction

http://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-dIaQDC196B0/T8wBzUvcsoI/AAAAAAAAAms/aozcLCB1jOU/s800/IMG_0245.jpg

[bhavya joshi]

Nice Attempt.. celeste,

Like the BG and You got both Needle in Image. if you focus on one Right Needle with Bug can get more Clear Subject and Object. Due to F:14 Bug Gets Soft. Not much Details seen in Bug. but Well try... Keep Clicking..:S3:

[Steve Maxson]

Hi Celeste and welcome to the Macro forum! Yup, this looks like a midge with those feathery antennae. I like your comp with the two needles against a clean background. The midge is giving you a nice pose. There are a few tweaks you might consider to make your image even stronger. I don't know what the original scene looked like, but your image has a yellowish cast - you might try adding some blue to see if you like that better. You might tone down the bright OOF needle tips in the background a little as they are drawing my eye. You might also try a round of NR on the background to smooth it out more and there are a few sensor dust spots on the background that would be easy to clean up. You're off to a good start - keep them coming! :S3:

[Ken Childs]

Hi Celeste, this is a great first post to this forum! The comp looks good and the BG has a great feel to it. Steve offered some great suggestions....here are a few more. This looks a bit dark so I would increase the exposure and then give it another round of sharpening. I would also use a less intrusive signature or no signature at all.....the one you have on this is very distracting. It looks like you're well on your way to figuring out how to get the best out of your new lens! :S3: