Hi Jim First of all love your macro lens It is my favorite !!!!!
You got a very good looking bg and Dfly position good and sharp The light was not helping you there seems to be contrast and the head is a bit dark These also look much better on a different perch The branch sort of overpowers the little guy
I see why you are leaving the room on the right (direction of eyes) but might be better to cut down a bit !!! These bugs are fun and addictive !!!!
Sweet composition. My field guide to dragonflies (Dragonflies of the Northwoods by Kurt Mead) indicates this is a twelve-spotted skimmer.
I think the other criticisms are spot on and will only improve this very nice image. I add two things. The BG looks grainy to my eye, and the details in shadows and highlights are poor because of the strong light. If it were mine I'd carefully lasso the dragonfly and perch and run a gentle application of shadows/highlights to bring out more detail in the shadows and help out the hot spots on the wings. Then I'd select "inverse" and run noise reduction and a light gaussian blur on the BG. That will make it more buttery and less distracting.
Last edited by Steve Foss; 01-08-2008 at 02:18 PM.