Shots for Constructive Criticism

OK, after several posts in the 'What has Happened?' thread, I am opening myself up for the full blast of constructive criticism with some images I have shot today. I have no idea what I want criticism upon, unlike dougf8 I find it hard to ask for critique on individual aspects of my images.

I work very hard on my macro photography and try to use as little equipment as possible. I don't use any camera supports, but I will use flash once in a while, although I prefer natural light. I go for a compositional approach, rather than 'extreme close-up' as this to my eye looks more attractive. I take care with backgrounds and try to ensure the subject stands out. So there you are, I've given you some pointers, now what do you think?

The natural light images in this set are with the K-3 (bar one) and the flash ones are with the K-5IIs. Flash used was a manual Neewer TT560 Speedlite, set on half power and fired through a home-made diffuser. Flash was held in one hand to direct it where I wanted, camera was held in the other hand. All shots are with the Pentax DFA 100mm F2.8 WR Macro lens, some also with a Teleconverter with the glass removed, to act as a short extension tube whilst maintaining aperture control and IQ.

Blue Eyes





Looking Straight At You





Early Lunch (Zebra Spider with Prey)





Early Lunch 2





Eye





Clinging On





Damsel in Distress (this one has lost half its abdomen)





Female Common Blue





Upside-down Bumble Bee (no idea what this Bee was doing)





Launch Pad





Yellow and Green (this one's a bit over-exposed)




Thanks in advance for your comments.

Regards
David

The first four...the DoF is too shallow. Could work in some instances but gives me no pleasure in these.

Eye maybe a crop of Clinging on but the latter works much better, giving some context and sense of scale. Damsel in distress works the same way but I like the view from the back, showing the stripes and wings.

Female common blue is great. Great proportion of subject to frame and the DoF is spot on to me.

Upside down Bumble bee is lacking in detail but probably due again to that very narrow DoF. At this point Bees must come across as little fatties in comparison to the others.

Launch Pad is a great picture, perfectly framed but, you guessed it, DoF again...feeling robbed of that little more in focus.

Yellow and Green...shame about the wings. Out of focus.

Thanks for sharing. The couple you nailed were awesome.

Insect macro is not something I've ever tried, though I've admired a lot of it, especially Nass's focus-stacked images. I think it's a genre that produces a lot of outstanding images, so I'll be brutal and compare it to some of the amazing stuff I've seen, but would have absolutely no idea how to produce.

Firstly, nice backgrounds in all of them; smooth, uniform colour backgrounds seem to work best in insect images. No distraction. These images mostly look sharp in the right places, though that's one thing that frustrates me, such limited DOF.....


BTW, isn't it about time the minimum file size here was increased to allow for people with decent monitors?



The first one, I'd crop it smaller, lose about about 30% of the area but keep the same composition. If it's shot on the K3, plenty of pixels to play with. Love the eyes.

The second one (Looking Straight at You?....aren't numbers easier, this isn't a photo comp where titles are needed) The composition is too central, doesn't work for me. Is it a crop from the first shot? I think it would work better with the insect on a third.

Early lunch... with so much oof, I'd prefer a much tighter crop. Or a bit of focus stacking, If you could pop the spider in the freezer for a while. Then we could see it's lunch. The eyes look a bit lost in a world of blur.

Eye (not quite in focus, that eye) and Clinging On (once again, two crops from the same image?),...what I presume are hairs look like halo's, possibly due to the forum re-sizing. Clinging on, how about cropping off the left side, putting it on that ubiquitous third again? I'd crop it to get rid of that brighter stalk to the left of the creature.

Damsel in distress....not as good as the previous images. Looks a bit soft, but once again I'd crop a bit from the left. The leaves are the most interesting part of this image for me.

Female common blue...could imagine this in an insect book, but the background is a bit dull compared to the rest.

Bumble bee...wrong bit's in focus, bin it.

The last one.... nah. You've not quite nailed the focus. The funny thing on it's head is the only bit uber-sharp.

Whoops... missed Launch pad...and it's my favourite...I'd cropit a bit smaller. More DOF would be great. Be mercenary. Freeze your insects and focus stack.

Hi David

'Early lunch' and 'launch pad' really work for me - love the focal points and DOF and the backgrounds just seem right to me.

I am not technically minded enough to offer any great insight, I can only say that these are the stand out shots for me - the rest are the sort of shots that if I had taken them - I would be thinking they are OK - but would be proud of the 2 mentioned.

Carl

Thanks for the feedback guys, all gratefully received!

Some info about the points made by Gravelrash and Jon:

- There are no crops from the same image, all are different shots

- The eye is in focus Jon, it appears it may not be, but here's a massive crop of the same image:




- DOF was an experiment with these, I decided to use no more than F8, some are wider. This was due to light conditions (quite dull) and also because I wanted to try some shallow DOF stuff some worked, some didn't

- Not sure about this Jon, the eye of the bee is in focus, but it is was so dark there I couldn't get any detail into it. Take a look at the pollen grains around the eye and you can see they are in focus. Needed the flash for this one really as there was too much shadow area

Oh and by the way - I don't do freezing of insects! The challenge for me is getting them 'in the wild' so to speak and focus stacking in these conditions is not really an option, especially when hand holding, as they don't stay still.

Thanks again guys

Regards
David

I've never tried Macro or even possess a macro lens, so tell me David, how far away from the end of the lens to the subject do you end up with that 100mm macro? Are we talking feet or inches?

Hi Steve

A good example would be 'Looking Straight At You', on this one the front of the lens would have been probably a couple of inches from the subject as I had an extension tube fitted which means closer focus.

It's very difficult to get this close as they fly off at the slightest of movements, so I have to creep around really carefully! Also, a lot of the time I can't support the camera, so keeping it still is a real challenge, imagine me on my knees, crouched forwards as far as I can stretch, trying to get the point of focus spot on (DOF less than a millimetre). It's not easy!

The other approach, i.e. putting insects in the freezer and using focus stacking is another thing altogether and enables the use of tripods, focus rails, focus stacking etc. It's not possible to do this for the type of shots I was taking, the next best option is flash to freeze the subject, but then the pics don't look natural. Flash also helps with lower ISO and narrower apertures, usually F16 or so is good for macro work but I decided on a different approach today.

Cheers
David

Thanks David. I'm not really the kind of person that gets satisfaction from all that effort to get a pic of a bug but I know how seriously you take your work and never imagined it to be easy.

I wouldn't have had a single criticism if it was anyone else but I think in your case I probably echoed what you knew already and you'll probably go out and find a solution to the impossible.

You already produce beauty from starkness so I look forward to you putting the Storm factor into macro. Could be very interesting time if you decide to continue.

Don't worry about the criticism Steve, I like to experiment and I expect some shots to work and others to fail. As I mentioned at the start of the thread, I want all comments good and bad as this is how I learn.

I will definitely continue with the macro, but I won't go down the 'freezer' route, it has to be subjects in their natural environment for me.

Cheers
David

Don't worry Gareth, I have noticed, but your post came in as I was typing replies to the others! I'm not a speed typist!

Thanks for the comments, you are right about the DOF and flash, there are times when I try to avoid the artificial light but today was probably not bright enough. Also, I do think the shallow DOF can work on some images, e.g. direct head-on shots where the body is hidden. I remember seeing a head-on butterfly shot from Dorothea (where is she now?) which was done at F2.8 and only the eyes were in focus. It was superb.

Regards
David

I have found that the close in macro work using natural light is very tricky, I have tried and failed miserably (still hasn't stopped me trying though). Also very difficult to appreciate macro on here when reducing picture size, as alot of an image at this scale is in the detail.

For the first couple damselflies the shallow DOF for me hasn't worked, as you mentioned it can work but the transition from behind the head (thorax?) to the abdomen the colouring starts leading back but then because of their shape there is a dead space jumping into blur, no wing at all, if it could have been possible it would I think have been a great candidate for the head and eye only shot so the body/abdomen would not have been visible.

I like the zebra spider, possibly the second more as I think the eyes have just been nailed that little bit better, but they are tricky blighters to catch, with prey is probably an advantage due to slowing them down a bit, also on a leaf is nice I only every find these on walls.

The profile shots of damsels and bee are better for me, the "in distressed damsel" I think suits the shallow DOF with the damaged abdomen the fact the wings seem to blend out from there for me works, but the female common blue I reckon needed a narrower aperture, maybe not all the way to f16 but definitely a touch to try and have the whole profile in focus. The bee again DOF too narrow (may be the reduction for forum) but the looks like it is just outside of the range as the hairs coming from the eye and pollen there look okay.

The launchpad fly I like the composition and the colours (for a plain ugly fly), the detail on the leaf and the background darkening off has worked well. The golden (dung fly) afraid this has suffered because of the limited DOF, I think that the wing detail could've made this one as the wing colours with detail could've made this stand out, as they are a colourful fly.

But I appreciate how tricky alot of these shots are, I am still waiting to get a keeper of a Damsel or Dragon fly from my local tarn, hopefully when I get back in the next couple of weeks, also like that they are all in the field, whilst I can imagine it is easier if they are chilled for me alot of the joy is knowing they have been caught in their natural environment along with the associated skills to do that.

"Launch Pad" is the stand out photo for me (composition and DOF)

On a slight side-note I'd be interested to know how you removed the elements from the TC (was it the Teleplus 2X Af?) - I'm considering the same thing

Hi Lennybloke, I didn't remove them, I bought the TC with them already removed, so I don't know how this was done. It's not the AF one, just the one with the aperture contacts.

Regards
David

I use a lens spanner to remove the elements usually takes 5 mins.