I photographed this small thing on a roof of a small log cabin, me standing on the ground when shooting.
Type of Critique Requested
Aesthetic: Feedback on the overall visual appeal of the image, including its color, lighting, cropping, and composition.
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
The reason for taking this image is only that I wanted to photograph this plant and especially capture this moment with a water drop on it. (Just about 10 seconds after I finalized this photo and planned to move to a different angle the water drop fell off!)
Any comments are welcome!
Due to my position and that this plant is very small, just a few miillimeters in length, I could not get that close that I wanted. Therefore the image is cropped but I think the quality anyhow is acceptable?
I deliberately kept the web thread, what is your opinion about that?
Technical Details
1/60, f/4, ISO 800 (aperture and ISO chosen to get a reasonable short shutter speed due to some wind), OM-D E-M1X with 60 mm macro lens, focus stacked (15 images) using Zerene Stacker software, tripod
A sporophyte! Woo hoo! One of my favorite subjects and oh, that 60mm did it justice. Are you tempted by the 90? I am.
Anyway…I love the drop and how crisp it is with the rest of the spore capsule. The highlights are almost getting away here, but I think using a polarizer would have forced you to crank the ISO higher, so I think you did the best you could. There is a touch of smeariness and haloing in the stem itself, but you could probably retouch that away if you saved the project. Otherwise you could start over or try to fix it in Photoshop. It isn’t super obvious, but I was being nerdly.
Love the spider silk. I often leave it in, too, because I think it tells part of the story of this tiny world. I can imagine a jumping spider finding this sporophyte and hopping up there, trailing silk all along the way.
Ola, what a neat find and capture. I too love the spider web, so glad that you left it in. Water drops are always a nice bonus. Most droplets aren’t that big, so it helps me realize the small size of the sporophyte (as @Kris_Smith informed us that it is) since I have no clue the size in real life. So glad you spotted it and captured this shot. Glad the droplet waited for you to get the shot too! The BG is nice and supported to the subject. Nicely done!
Ola: A great find and a fine capture. In the full size version the texture in the bloom is evident and very nicely rendered. I also love the refractions in the drop and wish you could have gotten closer to investigate them more thoroughly. So it goes. Superb capture of a unique subject and moment. >=))>
Thanks for pointing this out, i will go back and try to fix it!
The 90 mm macro have amazing specs and seems to have received positive reviews so of course I am tempted. But I really like the 60 mm macro a lot, and at present time I do not do that much macro photos so I think I stick with the 60 for now,
