Born, bred and breeding in a 3 foot circular tub, these pond-skaters (Gerridae) still seem to relish their lockdown life. Except for Mr Lonely. But maybe he’s the only one that looks up in wonder at the blue sky and green trees above them.
Specific Feedback Requested
I chose a B and W version as it seemed to highlight better the effects of the legs straining the surface tension on the water. It also brought out the overall play of light and shadow better.
Technical Details
Is this a composite: No
D500 + 105 f2.8 micro. 1/200 f8 ISO 800. After tonal adjustments and NR/sharpening in ACR, converted to B and W in Photoshop, having adjusted the colour sliders until I thought it looked OK.
I like these three. Congrats at getting them to be still for 1/200th of a second. They’re not all equally sharp, but that’s how it goes sometimes. I’d push the whites a little to bring up the contrast. Nice catch. Ours are still hibernating or whatever it is they do when it’s winter.
Mike, “water striders” are tough to shoot because they are almost constantly moving. This is quite a catch getting two pairs and a single in one frame. This looks very good at small and medium size. The strong contrast works well. In the largest view, I’m surprised at the lack of definition in the markings on backs of the two top bugs, while the legs remain sharp. That might relate to how you used the sliders in the b&w conversion. In my limited b&w conversion experience, I’ve seen that the blue channel gets noisy and soft quickly. Another NPNer, who was excellent at b&w landscapes, suggested removing much of the blue in raw by setting the Temperature slider to 5800 and then doing the conversion. That works well with suppressing noise in the blue channel.
Thanks, Mark, for these suggestions. Here’s a repost after I set the temperature to 5800 and later avoided adjusting the blue channel. I’ve also applied less adjustment to the other colour channels, concentrating on the backs of the top insects. See what you think about the backs, but probably another factor was that I was focussing more on where the legs enter the water, and the resulting surface tension effects. At f8 this meant that the insect backs were not in full focus. These insects are an interesting challenge for sure!
Mike, the extra contrast in their backs is a nice improvement. Yes, the backs of the top two are still a hair soft, so I’m sure you’re right about f/8…such are the decisions in the world of macro, especially with things that move.
