Robber Fly Family Asilidae Bulga NSW Australia

[Rod Warnock]

Robber Fly Family Asilidae Bulga NSW
Canon EOS 7D Lens 400mm L USM 5.6 ISO400 F8.0 1/640 Kenko Ext Tubes stacked(68mm) flash 14 March 2012 10.19am
This Robber Fly was hawking rapidly on a track at Bulga and landed on a dead piece of stick I focused quickly and actually didn't initially notice the prey. I do not know what Genus let alone what species at this stage.
Thanks for viewing
Best regards
Rod Warnock

[Joe Senzatimore]

Great reaction on your part. Tack sharp and sweet comp. Might take a bit off the bottom as I don't see a need for that much base.

[Allen Sparks]

Very nice behavioral capture with prey. Love the detail and tones in the image. The composition works for me as is - my eye is drawn some to the orange blob in the ULC - may want to clone that out.

[Andrew McLachlan]

Great capture Rob...ditto on the slice off the bottom. Love the colors in the fly!

[Rod Warnock]

Thank you all for your comments. Allen: "my eye is drawn some to the orange blob in the ULC". I did not notice that blob but yes it will be easily removed, I had wondered about the OOF eucalypt leaf to right.
Joe and Andrew: A slice off the bottom would take the head of the robberfly away from the stronger point IMO ?
As regards the prey it looks like either a bee or wasp ? Here is a crop and blowup of that section .
Thanks and Best regards
Rod

[Steve Maxson]

Hi Rob. Excellent behavioral capture and good head to tail sharpness! I would agree about the orange blob in the ULC and would also suggest trying to blur the background on the right side. The other thing that catches my eye is the rather harsh flash-generated lighting which has produced quite a few spectral highlights on your subject. Many of these could be removed with some careful cloning. The other thing that would be helpful would be to use a diffuser on your flash head (something like a Westcott Micro Apollo softbox) to soften the light. Keep them coming!

[Ken Childs]

Nice job of capturing the action before this fast fly took to the wing! I like the angle and pose and I especially like that the fly is feeding. Steve's suggestion are good and in addition to what he suggests, if this were mine I'd crop some off the right and add some to the left, putting the fly's eye closer to the UL ROT position. Toning down the bright stick the fly is perched on would also be a good idea....adding black to the whites in a selective color adjustment might take care of that.

[Rod Warnock]

Thanks Steve for your comments andd I will chase out that reflector . Ken also thanks. The bleached dead bit of wood in full sun needs some more darkening for sure.
Best regards
Rod Warnock