Friendly Praying Mantis

[Christopher Miller]

I had a very interesting experience with this praying mantis. I had been outside photographing and came inside to discover this praying mantis on my shirt! I think he must have really wanted his picture taken! :D Of course, I obliged and spent several minutes photographing him once I got him off my shirt and back outside. Any C&C are welcome!

Olympus SP-550 UZ
f4.5 1/60, ISO 100, -0.3 EV
Aperture priority mode, pattern metering, cloudy WB
Processed in PS CS2; rotated to straighten the image, cropped, noise reduction, some selective sharpening, curves adjustments, and slight saturation boost

[Steve Maxson]

I like the head-on view, Christopher. The image is very sharp around the head, front legs, and the leading edge of the leaf while the overall shallow DOF works well here. The background gives a sense of the habitat without being distracting, IMO. Well done.

[Connie Mier]

This is great, I really like the position of the 2 in focus legs with the head above. The lighting is fantastic.

[Vida van der Walt]

Lovely image Christopher. I like the use of dof that place the attention on the face and front legs. Nice detail and great colours as well.

[Ed Cordes]

Eyes are tack sharp. The comments RE DOF are right on. My only wish is that the reflection on the head were reduced or eliminated. I am not sure if a polarizer would have helped?

[Christopher Miller]

Thanks for the comments everyone. Ed, the reflection bothered me too, so I had already toned it down some. I suppose I could try toning it down more.

[Jerry van Dijk]

That's a wonderful image, Christopher. I like the tight vetical crop and the DOF. Complementary colors of the BG are great as well. At what focal length did you shoot this image?
Kind regards,

Jerry.

[Christopher Miller]

Hi Jerry. This was taken at an equivalent focal length of about 58-59 mm (actual focal length was 9.84 mm). When taking close up photos like this one, I really don't have any choice of focal length because in order to focus real close, I have to switch to super macro mode, in which the focal length is fixed. Thanks for commenting!

[Julie Kenward]

Nicely done, Christopher! You got a perfect angle and a very cooperative subject! Great eye contact and those two front feet - perfectly sharp!

[Adrian David]

Nice pose and great eye contact! I like the composition and DOF.