The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
I stepped out early this morning to check on some new plants and flushed this little guy/gal. I’m always delighted to see one up close and ran for the camera. (I usually see them with green coloration, but they change at will.) Amazingly it was still there, and even sat still long enough for a stack. Then I put it back in a hidden spot under a hydrangea.
Tripod and macro light. Only WB and minor Shadows and Highlights adjusted on the raw files; into Zerene for a stack. In PS, slight crop and softening of the BG.
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Thanks @Bill_Fach! With the legs neatly folded up, just a little bigger than my thumbnail. (And I have small hands.) Google says 0.75" to 2" but I’ve never seen one even as big as an inch.
Correction: I flushed him (or a friend) again this morning and this time ran for the yardstick. He’s almost 1.5".
What a precious little frog. I love how he has his front feet tucked under his chin. Unusual coloring. The detail in the subject and the lovely blurred background are perfectly done.
Excellent image, Diane. I like the “perch” as well. the only modification I’d make, if your stack went far enough back is to include the last bit of the perch just behind the frog where it goes out of focus as that patch caught my eye and won’t let go.
Diane, he is a real cute little frog. Even 1.5 inches is pretty small. I also like his perch and as @Dennis_Plank mentioned, that area of the perch right behind him seems to be drawing my eye and I think it might be that it is oof and appears to be where it ought to be in focus with the amount of DOF that you have for the rest of the image. Maybe something happened during editing. Otherwise an excellent image of this little cutie.
Thanks, @Chris_Baird, @Dennis_Plank and @Shirley_Freeman! Good catch on the odd bit of the old wood. I’ve posted a cloned revision above. I intentionally limited the focus stack as the back part of the wood felt distracting. But the stack did finish in an odd way.
I like to put “decorative” (IMHO) old wood pieces around plants as a sort of sculpture garden, but they usually wind up being anything but decorative and tend to just get dropped here and there, awaiting some sort of inspiration for their use.
Hi Diane. Nice cleanup, but it wasn’t the area I meant. I’m attaching a copy of your image with the area circled. I do like what you did in the repost, though I hadn’t noticed it in the original, it’s a definite improvement.
Ahhh – thanks, @Dennis_Plank. I think I read something like “beyond the frog.” (Never been famous for reading the fine print.) I might be able to salvage that one with some texture and contrast. And now I see what was bothering me on the right edge – that “last piece” needs to be darker, or cropped. Will have a look later.
Diane, a fine look at a very cute little frog. Tree frogs do have this tendency to be cute and to sit all folded up like this. The bit of wood that it’s on adds nicely to the scene. The small amounts of softer focus feel right but do add a bit of “clutter”. Since you stacked, I wonder why you didn’t get the bit of wood near the bottom under it’s eye sharp?
Diane. Great capture of this guy in your image… The natural colors and the sharp crisp of his eye. Inch and a half … I would have guessed larger. Really Nice Image. How close did you get with your macro lens.
Thanks, @glennie, @Mark_Seaver and @Gill_Vanderlip! @Dennis_Plank, I wasn’t able to do anything with that OOF area except make a mess of it, but I had done another stack just before this one. I had shifted the camera slightly but the area behind him was mostly sharp so I just added a masked piece of it here. I decided to crop tighter as the setting is not lovely. Posted above.
Mark, no excuse except that I was just too focused (as it were) on the little froggie, whom I was certain was going to leap away any second. Maybe I can catch him (or another one) and try again with a nicer perch.
Gill, the front of the lens was probably a little over a foot away.
The second repost looks fine, Diane. I have no problem with grabbing a part of the scene from another image or set of images. I try to remember to grab extra shots of the perch for birds if its angled awkwardly, so I can use them in a hand blended stack if needed.
Thanks, @glennie and @Dennis_Plank! I also think it’s OK to use another image from the same shoot to patch an unavoidable (or unavoided) flaw – with disclosure, of course.
As an old skiier, I do believe it is possible to avoid losing one’s way on the slippery slope of the new reality.
I love this photo showing how nature works allowing the is frog to bend in with the log. The details and sharpness of the subject is amazing. Well done
Thanks, @Dean_Salman! You may have pegged why he sat still for me – he thought he was camouflaged! And he probably would have been well enough except that he was out in the open, and a predator with a camera saw him hop.
