The Eye

[Tim Vidrine]

Captured this male Roseate Skimmer in my backyard over the summer. This is a crop to show the detail and color of the head. These are very colorful dragonflies. I wanted to go down to f/11, but was scared of the shutter speed loss. C&C welcome.

Aug. 08, 2007 6:27 pm
Canon 20D
Canon 300mm f/4L IS with 1.4 TC & 62mm Ext.
1/40s f/7.1 iso400
Av mode
Eval metering
No Flash
Gitzo tripod
Wimberly II head

[Jim Caldwell]

Hi Tim
I really like the composition and I only have two small observations. The first is that the near eye appears to be outside the zone of focus and appears to be a bit soft. I like the eyes to be sharp. The other is just a little nit, but the background lines behind the head bother me a little. I chase these guys around here all the time and I know how tough they are to photograph!

Another photographer (and I think she signed up here), Christine Evans, uses a technique which works well with the camera mounted on a tripod. Shoot several images of the subject and rack focus. Then, in Photoshop (or your favorite image processor), you stitch together the best focused pieces from each image! It's a technique I have used with some success!

[Tim Vidrine]

Hey Jim, thanks for tips and for viewing. I'm going to try out rack focusing.

[Robert O'Toole]

I agree with Jim about the DOF.

The eye pupil is actually a psudeo eye since it is in fact a compound eye and the simple eyes the ocelli (Sp?) are actually in focus.

The method Jim is recommending is called focus stacking and can give amazing results. Here is a good primer:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focus_stacking

[Tim Vidrine]

Robert, thanks. I'll give the link a look.

[Mike Moats]

Hey Tim, I use helicon focus for stacking and it works well. Camera must be on a tripod, with no movement in the subject. If your on a tripod you don't need to worry about loss of shutter speed by shooting the f/11. Most of my images are shot with very high f stops and many shutters as high as 30 sec. I like the image, but a slight more DOF would have been nice.

[Tim Vidrine]

Mike, thanks for the tip. I found Helicon Focus yesterday while studing the stacking techique. Are you using the full version?

[Mike Moats]

Hey Tim, I bought the cheap version which I think cost around forty dollars. It works fine for the limited times I've used it.