Club competitions

[marlunn]

Got to love club competitions - this got a 20 out of 20 in the internal club comp - but 13 out of 20 in an interclub comp - judge comment - would have liked more depth of field (noted technical difficulty), rather bright strip top left

My comment - please list the drugs you are on

[DanK]

No drugs.

It's all a matter of taste, but I think this is an excellent capture.

I don't see a "strip," but I assume the second judge was complaining that the top left is a little brighter than the rest of the background. I agree; this is pretty slight in this case, but it is often distracting to have brighter areas on the edges. You could just dodge it a little. Instead, I would crop a good bit off the top and more off the right. Since the background is completely featureless, I don't see what is gained by having so much of it. Maybe something roughly like this:



The capture of the fly is superb, IMHO. If you had shut it down to f/13 or so, you would have had the near edge of the wing and the legs on the other side in focus, but even without that, you captured the most important details very well. Having your camera parallel to the fly did the trick. So in my view, the DOF on the bug is fine. I generally shoot bugs at f/13 or thereabouts, but I often have less of the bug in focus than you do in this image.

In general, OOF areas in front of the subject are distracting, but in this case, I don't find the blurry leaf in the foreground to be a problem at all. it didn't draw my eye.

[Wavelength]

This is very lovely; even while trimming a more close up it would be preferable more space in front

[marlunn]

Cheers Dan, appreciated. The image was hand held and a balance between the iso and Dof / Shutter speed on such a small subject to get it sharp, I felt the DoF was correct for the image, as you say getting low and parallel was the key - the light was from above left - I do not agree with 'rather bright strip' statement - your statement is more accurate. I feel that there needs to be some difference to show a natural background / light, for me it felt right. The crop works well but my drive was to show the insect in isolation in a large background as they are very small flies circa 9mm long. Previous images with tighter crops have had comments - 'would like more space for the insect to fly into' As you say its a matter of taste.

Thanks Nandakumar, appreciated.

[Geoff F]

These Broad-bodied Centurion Soldierflies have a very reflective surface which makes them notoriously difficult to photography; so this is an excellent effort.

[Cantab]

I agree with the others: a very good shot!

[marlunn]

Thanks Geoff, Bruce, much appreciated.

[Shadowman]

Nice capture and performance.

[IzzieK]

The edit of Dan is very nice, Mark…it is a very good shot to start with so editing is not really that painful.