Metallic Wood-boring Beetle

[Nancy Bell]

The Buprestid larvae generally bore under bark while the adults are attracted to flowers. This adult beetle is feeding on brilliant yellow Golden Banner in a meadow at 8,500 ft. in the northern Colorado Rocky Mountains. Finally it is summer up here and the flowers are stunning .

Canon 1D Mark IV, Canon 100 f2.8 macro, 1/320, f9, ISO 400

C & C most welcome.

[Brendan Dozier]

Very cool looking bug, Nancy, and like the climbing pose with surrounding habitat you captured. Love the metallic look to it. Great details, sharp where it needs to be, and nicely framed. Nice work, look forward to seeing more of your images from the mountains.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Nancy,
These are tough....because they are so dark.......so you did pretty well! I would have preferred a bit more DOF.....so sacrificing some SS may have been an option and pushing the Mark 4 to iso 640 or 800 may have also been one. Just some options to keep in mind fo rnext time out. Looking forward to more of the flowers and critters!

[Nancy Bell]

Upping the ISO to 800 is a good idea. With so much brightness I didn't even think of that.

[John Platt]

Love the climbing pose, great color. I agree with Roman that a little more DOF would have been nice, but it is an excellent image as is. Nice capture.

[Dave Leroy]

Very nice habitat shot and an excellent shot of the beetle in its environment. Good comment about capturing the metallic look.

DOF always seems to be a challenge with macro.

Dave

[Steve Maxson]

Hi Nancy. A cool looking beetle navigating a sea of yellow and I also like the biological info you included. Good comments above about DOF. I like the iridescent metallic look of the beetle - I'm wondering if you can lighten the beetle a bit to get some detail back in the blacks? The diagonal orientation of the beetle works well, though I would prefer a little more room at the top to give the antenna more space. There are a few small sensor dust specks scattered around the image - an easy fix. I hope to see more of your insect shots.

[Nancy Bell]

Dust spots gone. I lightened the back as much as possible. No more room to add at the top. Thanks everyone for your comments.

Oops, I suddenly see a few more dust spots. Back to the drawing board.

[Ken Childs]

Yep, you got rid of the spots on the flower but missed the ones in the UL and UR corners.

Dark subjects with bright BG's are tough to deal with but I think you did a pretty good job with this one. I think you could lighten up the beetle a bit more with SH. Adding a little contrast after SH should finish this one off! I think a vertical crop with the beetle's head near the UL ROT position is something you should explore.