The photographer is looking for thoughtful feedback on the image as a whole, especially around the areas noted below.
Feedback Focus: Artistic / Expressive
About This Image
Another one - beautiful insect with a bad name
Again green leaf and yellow fly really make a lovely limited colour palette
Feedback Requested
Just another of the series on insects and colours
This was another single image that was intended to be a stack with only one usable image before it flew away.
The feet at the back and wing tips are soft and this would have benefited from the stack technique.
The green leaf seems to be just the exact shade to set off the yellows of the fly, love the red too.
There was quite a bit of noise in the original image. 6400 iso isn’t awful in the A7iv but I am always in too minds about Denoise software. I use Topaz Studio Photo most often - usually on the raw file, but for the gentler stuff I do it on a layer in PS. Either way I play with the layer opacity to control harshness and artefact. The NR is excellent in LR - again gives slightly less artefact look.
I dont like NR to show - I’ll take a softer image - and “pin sharp” I think is sometimes taken too far.
The tips of the fly’s feet had a white edge which I think was a mixture of NR artefact and the lighting. I had to correct with brush at pixel level and may not have been a complete success.
I would be very interested in other’s use of NR software in this sort of image.
I always tone down the default settings.
Comments appreciated
PS should the dew drop on the leaf stay? 2 others have already been cloned out as distractions.
Technical Details
Camera: Sony A7iv
Lens: 90mm Macro G OSS
Focal length: 90mm
Shutter speed: 1/125
Aperture: /f20
ISO:6400
Flash: yes (manual)
Very nice and sharp! The dew drop adds some estimate of the size of this little fly. For noise reduction, I find that LR is the best and others tend to leave artifacts around boundaries and where texture changes. I used Topaz DeNoise for a while, but it left way too many artifacts for web presentation and printing. The white edges on the tarsi are small setae which the fly uses as a way of tasting what they are perched on. Overall, comp is nice and I like the color combination yellows and green. I like this one as presented…Jim
Well now - this is pretty terrific. The lighting is soft, but directional and the detail superb. You’re right that it has a bad name, but a cute aspect. Love those fuzzy legs! And the orange bit on the head is interesting, too. Flies have such cool structures and bits.
However you handled the NR & sharpening worked really well - I don’t see any weird plastickyness…is that a word? LOL. Anyway, the composition works nicely to show so much of the body and wings. The supporting and framing leaves contrast well and make for a nice stage for the star. No need for stacking here I think. Water drops add to the scene IMO, not detract.
Question though - why ISO 6400? I assume it’s because of the tight aperture you needed, but it looks as if you used flash so… Just wondering. I think this is technically great and has a nice thoughtful aspect of a true nature lover.
Hi @Kris_Smith
It was either user error or AutoISO playing funny games, or both - I usually play in fully manual mode, but very occasionally auto iso (limited to 6400) if I haven’t got time to get flash values right.
With flash I usually am 100 or 200 iso - as you would expect.
Huw, with the hairs on the back, the entire middle leg, the eyes and the head nicely sharp, this looks great. Fly’s generally move a lot, so stacking is almost impossible. In addition, with a stack, you’d have stacking artifacts all along the “edges” of the fly, which would be very hard to clone away.
Huw, this is a really nice shot of this little fly. Such wonderful details. That little droplet is a nice addition to the the overall image. I like it as it is. Yeah, I have done that more than once, forget to change the ISO from auto for a flash shot.
What a lovely capture!! Wonderful composition and colors, DOF is just fine, details look perfect and the flash is so nicely diffused!
I’ve also become a fan of LR’s Denoise, and once it’s done I can tweak the amount slider without waiting for it to re-process. So nice that the default is 50% and I rarely move it from that.
Mostly in that “pin sharp” focus you mentioned, Huw. The parts that aren’t in focus don’t present a problem to me except possibly that far foreleg that seems to go out rather abruptly due to the angle of the shot and it being partially obscured by the near foreleg.
Without being able to go into the pixellevel, in the two nearest legs, the feet seem to end in a kind of pad with extremely fine white hairs around the edges, which might have been the white rim around the others (unless you’re referring to something else).
I agree that the color combination is awesome.
For noise reduction, I’ve gone to DxO PureRaw. I believe I’m using version 5 and they’re up another version, but I have no idea how much of an improvement it was. I have seen some people using the latest overall DxO processing system which includes the same noise reduction and they still seem to be getting excellent results. I’ve had very few issues with either noise reduction or sharpening artifacts.
Great tones, palette is excellent, composition is excellent. Flash was handled really well. Sharpness (where it exists) looks great to my eye. I’m a fan of this image.
There’s a lot that is in focus, and it’s pretty impressive for a single shot, even at f/20. The two legs, the side of the body, much of that wing, and the eye are all very sharp, and the leaf is detailed enough to do its job well.
Frankly, I think focus stacks on insects result in boring photos: everything is the same, so where to look? I’d rather the image point me to a few things, and let me wander through those. I don’t need every leg to be infocus; I don’t need both/all the wings, etc. I need the photographer to do a good job showing me what they love. And you’ve done that.
N.B. The white rim on the feet is part of the body. Pull up any image of a dung fly and you’ll see it.
Just wondering. I think this is technically great and has a nice thoughtful aspect of a true nature lover.