Well here goes this is my first post. If I haven't done something the right way with posting can someone let me know. This photo was taken near my home in Cheshire England. Its part of a project I am working on to photograph the wildlife on a 2km stretch of river through the seasons. I have been working on this project for a number of years. The photo was taken with a Canon 30D, 300mm F4 IS canon lens, ISO 640, 1/400 second and f7.0 aperture. Shot in Aperture priority mode. Comments etc. most welcome.
This is a good first post and your subject matter is especially nice. The colors of the damsel are wonderful and the background looks great! In the orientation as it is now, I would prefer more canvas below so you could make this a portrait crop but I think with a little work, you can make a nice landscape crop. If it were mine, I'd rotate it a bit clockwise and then crop in much tighter.
Here's a quick (and sloppy) rework of the image. Besides being rotated and cropped, I used Photoshop's shadows/highlight tool to brighten up some of the darker areas of the damsel and then used the smudge tool to extend the 2 stems in the upper right corner. Some ares looked a tiny bit soft so I gave it another round of sharpening. I also cloned out the tiny black speck on the right stem. In a perfect world you wouldn't want those leaves behind the damsel but this is a strong subject so they really don't bother me at all. I don't know which editing software you're using but whatever it is should have similar tools.
I'm looking forward to other shots from your river project!
Hi Matt....This is a really fine image and you should be proud of it. The sharpness is great and the bg is well handled. I also like the color palette. Ken makes some good suggestions about a possible rotation and crop ....but as is...its fine!
Hi Matt. I'm happy to see you posting here in Macro! You have a beautiful subject with good head-to-tail sharpness. Ken has already covered my thoughts regarding tightening the crop and brightening some of the darker areas. The only other thing I would suggest would be to run some noise reduction on the background to smooth it out. All of these suggestions are merely tweaks to an already strong image. Keep them coming!
Thank you for your kind comments. The photo was uploaded pretty much as it was taken. I take your points about the rotation and cropping. Thank you again.