The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
This honey bee is working on one of our Russian sage flowers. They got my interest as I was standing near the plant (looking for birds) and I heard the buzzing.
Specific Feedback
Does the cropping look about right? At first glance, it looks to be noisy but both subjects actually have pollen (?) all over them. Note the bee’s wings are not noisy looking. I didn’t think the out of focus flowers in the BG hurt anything so I thought I’d leave them in.
Technical Details
Z9, 160-600 lens, Nikon 1.4 TC, f 9.0, monopod, 840mm, ISO 11400, cropped to 2404 x 2657
Critique Template
Use of the template is optional, but it can help spark ideas.
I wondered about all the texture on the subject that seems “cruntchy”, but your explaination helped. As to the cropping. I find the flower in the LLC distracting. I wonder about cropping a bit tighter on the left. I do like seeing some detail in the background. It gives a sense of place to the composition. A great treatment of the subject, thanks for sharing.
The composition looks fine to me, Dave. The bee looks great, but the flower does have a kind of crunchy look to it. I don’t know if you did sharpening, but if so, you might want to back off on it a bit on the flower. If not, it’s just the nature of the flower. The idea of the out of focus flowers works for me, but the bright patch it the middle of the one in the lower right tends to pull my eye quite a bit. Burning it would just turn it gray which wouldn’t look good, so I’d probably either paint over that section with a relatively low opacity brush of the same purple as the surrounding flower or get rid of the whole thing. Either one could work.
Dave: I’ll pretty much ditto what Dennis said. With bright spots like the one he mentioned I find the painting technique preferable. You didn’t mention your SS but in this light at that ISO I suspect it was pretty quick. A touch more DOF might have been possible without losing wing movement on the bee. It looks nice and still in this presentation so either the bee was resting or you did stop the action. All things considered a fine capture and presentation. >=))>
