Golden Buprestid Beetle

[Chris Hansen]

A Golden Buprestid Beetle down the road from my house. These beetles are extremely destructive to wood framed houses.

Canon 10D
Phoenix 100mm Macro w/ Kenko Extension tubes
Old Bogen 3021 Tripod
Bogen 3055 ballhead
ISO 100 f22 @ 1 sec.
16 in. Gold reflector

Beautiful creature.

God's light to all,

Chris

[Robert O'Toole]

Colorful subject and the comp is good. There are some flaws in the image as presented that can be corrected in PS and or conversion.

the BG is way pixelated. You can see the steps in the JPEG comp clearly. Try to upload a larger file if you can.

The lighting is a little dark, some fill flash would have worked wonders. Also the beetle looks sharp overall but the head looks soft..

Lastly you have some major sensor dust.

Robert

[Chris Hansen]

Robert,
Appreciate your comments. I'm still trying to figure out how to post the correct size image. After closer observation my sensor is really in need of a cleaning. I admit to not being very fastidious about that. You are correct the head does seem a little soft too. What are some of the things I can do in conversion of the image? I'm using the conversion in CS-2.

Thanks for your insights they are a big help.

God bless,

[Kaushik Balakumar]

Oops, definitely a beautiful subject but lacks in sharpness. Perhaps 1 sec is too large a time - well am not sure. Else locking up the mirror before firing might have helped...?

[Stephen Stephen]

Chris interesting looking beetle. Besides the advice that Robert has given you I might also suggest re-cropping this (if you have room) to have the twig a inch to the left of the lower right corner.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hi Chris,
Nice interesting subject. Possible improvements mentioned. Keep working these type of subjects and the rest will come!

[Mike Moats]

Hey Chris I like the comp and the crop, and some tips already mentioned.