The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
I’ve always enjoyed flies, at least as a photographic subject. Crane flies are no exception and I found this fellow sitting on a Swedish variant of the common pasque flower at the local botanical gardens. It was windy and it wouldn’t allow me to stabilize the flower it was on with my hands, but in the end, I got a few decent exposures. When the eyes were best, the body position was not what I wanted so in the end I combined them into this two-image stack/composite. It has been cropped close to emphasize the eyes and the almost alien-like body.
Specific Feedback
Anything really. Does the image work for you? I was going for a bit of a dark, mysterious alien feel…
Some specific things I was wondering about: The lower left corner is a bit brighter than the rest of that area. Should I make it a bit darker? The two images in question didn’t line up perfectly and I ended up with small blurry patches that I tried to cover up/clone over. Can you spot any areas that need further work in that regard?
Technical Details
Canon EOS RP + Laowa 100mm f/2.8 2x macro @ f/11, 1/160s, ISO 800, diffused flash. Two image manual composite.
Wow, Ingemar, you sure captured sharp eyes on this little guy. By having him as dark as you do, those bright limbs are pulling my eyes away from the subject since they are the brightest part of the image. I am not experienced in photo stacking, but something looks odd at the very top where one of his legs is, like it may be blurred out there, not sure. At first the light place in the LLC I thought helped balance the same shade pretty much in the upper part of the image, but then I started feeling like it needed darkening. So not really sure what to say about it. It is a great capture of this little guy.
In general, the image certainly does work for me.
I think you accomplished your goal quite nicely and I completely agree that it has a mysterious alien look, an alien look that I hope I never see in human size as some Sci-fi movies depict such creatures!
Yes, I do feel that the very LLC could be darker, it’s not a distraction for me but I think darker would make that area more even in terms of brightness.
I see the areas that @Shirley_Freeman is referring to and I feel she has very valid points, especially from an aesthetic point of view. Sometimes I fall short of providing suggestions on aesthetics, especially when I’m more drawn to the center of the subject like those sharp eyes and the top of the thorax.
I value Shirley’s experienced thoughts very much!
From my point of view (considering I’m blinded by my interest in those eyes and the thorax), it all works well, but for improvement purposes, I would consider implementing Shirley’s suggestions as well as darkening the LLC as I had previously mentioned.
The dark theme works because it’s like an overhead view of this crane fly while it has backed itself into a dark hiding place just waiting for something of interest to come along.
As always with our suggestions, apply what you like and appreciate the rest for what it is.
And of course if you decide to rework the image, we would appreciate seeing the reworked version added to your original post with an updated title, something like: “On the fly + Rework”
Other than the suggestions already made, I got nuthin. This is excellent in terms of light and sharpness. I’ve never photographed one of these guys although they are abundant. Maybe I’ll have a try sometime.
Hi Ingemar, really love seeing those eyes - a unique view for me. Congrats on making such a fine capture of a subject that is hard to compose well (for me anyway). Good advice above but I appreciate this image as is also.
Thanks all and especially @Shirley_Freeman and @Merv for your suggestions. I will look into a bit more the dodge and burn and see what I can accomplish (you are right that the bright spots here and there steal attention from the eyes). A bit easier to see actually here in a smaller format than when pixel-peeping at the full-size version. Should probably look at reduced size images more to better judge the overall balance of the image.
Only the eyes and middle of the thorax are actually composited so at least I got away with that bit I have a feeling there’s just a bend in the legs (they go all over the place) at the top of the image. I’ll sit on this and try for a second version in a few days.
This is very well composed, @Ingemar_Holmkvist - but would it be possible to clone out the 2 bright white stalks in the background? It’s a big ask, I know, but their removal would make this tip-top to my eye. Do you like the Laowa lens? I enjoy Micael Widell’s macro videos on YouTube, and he has lots of good to say about Laowa. Do you follow him (a fellow-Swede)?
The stalks might be tricky to get rid of completely, but I’ll see if I can tone them down more at least… This image is starting to turn into a lot of fixing for round two
As for the Laowa lens. In short, I really like it. Nice bokeh, 2x without anything extra to fiddle with, and razor-sharp at macro distances (some have reported it to be less sharp at infinity but I never noticed anything to really complain about. The build quality seems fine as well and good smoothness in the focus ring. There are however some things you need to keep in mind:
It’s a completely manual lens with all that entails. No EXIF data, aperture is closed down when looking through the viewfinder (might make it very dark) which either are dealbreakers or not. The EF version that I use is as far as I know the only Laowa macro lens that has an automatic aperture and records EXIF data. The EVF on my EOS RP is rather basic and does not like to boost the signal too much from a dark frame (framerate drops and there’s a decent amount of noise if I stop it down for DOF preview) so check this before buying or adapt the EF version.
The focus throw of the 100mm lens is pretty short (no idea about their other lenses) so while it works great for macro where you can set the magnification and focus through other means (focus rail, move your body etc) it’s harder to use for e.g. shallow DOF portraits or stacking using the focus ring. I rarely use this lens for anything but macro and the occasional landscape so this is no problem for me.
There is no front glass but instead, Laowa supplies a UV filter to prevent dirt etc getting into the lens. This has been changed in later lens design but might be an issue if you use flashes, diffusers or other things mounted to the filter thread but I never found it to be a problem for me.
As for Mikael, yes I follow him and a few other macro YouTubers. Always nice to see someone doing an excursion into my backyard (more or less) rather than the costa rican jungle or similar environments I will never see anyway and I find most of his opinions balanced compared to some photography channels.
I have a feeling there’s just a bend in the legs (they go all over the place) at the top of the image. I’ll sit on this and try for a second version in a few days.