I'm Resting

As a macro photography enthusiastic, I captured this beautiful creature at Diyasaru wetland park. I personally love the color combination, and negative space.

Type of Critique Requested

  • Aesthetic: Feedback on the overall visual appeal of the image, including its color, lighting, cropping, and composition.
  • Conceptual: Feedback on the message and story conveyed by the image.
  • Emotional: Feedback on the emotional impact and artistic value of the image.
  • Technical: Feedback on the technical aspects of the image, such as exposure, color, focus and reproduction of colors and details, post-processing, and print quality.

Specific Feedback and Self-Critique

Macro photography increase my curiosity to look for tiny things in nature and this was one such. Since I haven’t used tripod, could have done much better if I would used a tripod.

Technical Details

Canon 70 D with 100 mm macro lens. Aperture = f/8, Shutter speed = 1/125, ISO = 6400

A very nice find, Thiraviyam, and you captured it well. I like how the leaf and the fly are both pointing inward in the same direction. On my monitor, the greens seem a bit too saturated, mainly on the leaf, but maybe that is it’s natural color. I’m so glad that you spotted this little guy resting on the leaf.

I also love macro photography. It is like a whole different universe, seeing things through the lens that we wouldn’t walk right past if we weren’t looking for them. And, oh, to pull the little tiny creatures up on a large monitor, and see the details.

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Great closeup, Thiraviyam. The details and close up of this fly came out very well. I see what Shirley is saying about the green, it seems strong on my view. I am glad you got a nice shot of this insect. Others that photograph insects are like birders that spot a sparrow, it is just a sparrow. Flys can have really cool color.

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It’s a beautiful fly with the blue banding on its body and your composition is very interesting. When I first joined NPN I quickly learned I had too much noise in my shots and got Topaz Denoise. Are you using any noise reduction yourself (Photoshop’s own is OK too)? To my eye this shot has a bit of noise.

Thiraviyam: A very worthy subject and a solid comp. Judging from your settings the light must have been quite dim. The shot overall looks a bit soft with only the left edge of the leaf sharp. In macro DOF is a real challenge and one must also pay close attention to the point of focus. If you use autofocus your camera may not pick up a good spot to focus on, especially in dim light and even more if you’re hand holding. Your description doesn’t mention if you were using a tripod. Of course when taking shots of critters that can move vs a flower or other static subject it can be hard to deploy a tripod. One technique I use when hand holding in difficult situations is to put the shutter on high speed mode and take several shots. If you just stab the shutter button once you can get camera motion whereas if you take a rapid series of images one or two will usually come out better than the rest. For this image the area that I would have really tuned into would be the eye. The red is an immediate eye magnet but there is little detail in the eye which your lens is very capable of capturing. Great to have you aboard and looking forward to more of your work. >=))>

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Sorry, I just reread your post and you did say you did not use a tripod. My hand holding advice still stands.