The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
Fog and dew again this morning – an opportunity not to be wasted with the dry season already underway – so I went hunting. I was delighted to find this lovely little dwelling, and several other nice things.
Specific Feedback
All comments welcome! I can’t decide if I prefer the crop, but I think I do.
Focus stack in Zerene Stacker. No LR adjustments to the subs, thanks to morning fog. Very minor BG cloning. The wider view is cropped on the sides to 8x10.
Critique Template
Use of the template is optional, but it can help spark ideas.
I like it both ways. Is that Water Drops ??? This is such a unique image !!! A House ??? Great FIND !!! I love the fact you went out out walking and found this image. Those are the best kind. Way to Cool.
Thanks, @Gill_Vanderlip! Yup, a spider house, a very tiny one – about the size of a fingernail. (That’s the door toward the right.) Dew – on a cool, calm foggy morning.
Beautiful, Diane. I’ve tried on larger tent spider webs and they just end up looking like a mess. This came out very, very well. Even with that complex geometry, I’m not seeing any stacking anomalies. My personal preference is for the wider composition. The vertical just feels a bit crowded. A very good job even spotting something this small and a superb job of photography and processing.
Thanks, @Dennis_Plank, @Gill_Vanderlip (again) and @glennie! Dennis, I was lucky on this one – I didn’t find any anomalies. It’s always a crapshoot what aperture to use, what spacing of the subs, and where to position the DMap slider. Some day I’ll figure out a couple of rules of thumb. Gill, go looking in the grass on foggy still mornings or after a rain. Glennie, that’s the full frame top and bottom but I shot one from a bit farther away and a bit lower – you made me process it and here’s the TIFF just out of the stacker. I’ll do some cropping and a bit of cloning and post a version above – I think I like its lower angle on the house.
Diane, this is really, really good. A great find indeed, with it being so small. I’m not sure my old eyes would have seen it! There is just so much to enjoy with all of those dew drops. The BG compliments the plant the web is on which to me is a nice bonus. Well done!
Diane: I actually prefer the cropped version and your final wider angle. Isolating the subject in the cropped version works well for me but the second slightly wider view doesn’t add much but the more expansive view captures more of the context. A great find indeed and superb captures.>=))>
I, too, like the shot from the lower perspective. I like the tonal adjustments you did on the first set and the crop on the second from the top image. Without your description, I would have thought this was much larger than a fingernail. The water droplets really shine. Great job, Diane.
Thanks, @Shirley_Freeman, @Bill_Fach, @glennie, @Dennis_Plank and @Allen_Brooks! Looks like the lower angle wins. I worked it up with a better WB, an 8x10 crop and some BG cleanup. The LL corner was sharp in the stack and I thought it should be softer. Instead of blurring it I layered on one of the subs with that area OOF and masked it in with a soft-edged brush. I hope it’s within the guidelines to post it above the original, as I now prefer it, too.
Lovely work, Diane. I too prefer the top shot, especially the WB, which seems more natural. Great stacking for a subject which needs your and the wind’s stillness!
Thanks, @Mike_Friel and @glennie! I often seem to get too much red on overcast days with Daylight WB and the Adobe Color profile. Too easy to overlook it, as I did in the previous versions. A stack was easy here – there was a very slight breeze but the little house is almost right on the ground on pretty sturdy dried-up ground clover. I had the tripod as low as it would go, with the legs splayed out flat and a low-profile head. I was splayed out as flat as I could go, too, and got some bug bites and very wet jeans to prove it. Even with an articulating screen, I’ll go through contortions to use the viewfinder. Someday I’ll figure out why.
