Don't tell him that, he's just bought the DA35 macro!

Really nice shots, especially the first two. I love the fallen petals in no. 1. Makes me jealous for that lens.

I hope this guy isn't the creation of an existing forum member with a point to make, or some sort of 'performance art' piece...

For me Pensive is 'the' shot here, but agree it could do with a crop to the left. If I'm going to be critical in my typical armchair photographer fashion, I'd say a few of these could do with zooming in / cropping in order to focus a little bit more on the subject and generally tighten up composition.

There's some life affirming human interest there, as well as bleakness. More smiles than I generally see on my lunchtime stroll in Leamington, that's for sure.

Have you tried shooting from further along the path (to the right) and making sure the camera is perpendicular to the street. Other than that a bit of skew should sort it out. I think Serif has a skew function, or you could try freeware like GIMP. (Why buy software these days when people make it available for free!)

You can shoot wide open by using the aperture ring in AV mode. Would be worth checking the results against what you get shooting at what your camera is telling you is f4.0, i.e. is this a lens communication error, or is it refusing to stop down.

We look forward to your critiquing, and more importantly, your pictures, Expert. I agree that it is helpful to think outside the box, and offer a deeper critique of images, as long as people don't set out to police the way other people choose to participate.

However you kicked this thread off by criticising ALL flower and bug pictures as facile, which is why people have been defensive.

The images on this thread are fairly typical of the quality I see on this forum generally.

Yes there are 'me too' macro shots with unimaginative use of flash, poor composition, innapropriate dof etc... but your post wasn't to do with that - you were saying ALL flower and insect shots were too easy per se.



And constructive criticism is given to people who's shots could do with improvement, but you need to remember that 1) we try and be encouraging rather than condemnatory 2) people who comment may themselves be 'beginners' and not spot the failings which certain shots may have - but they should not be discouraged from joining in the discussion.

Seems to lack contrast and sharpness to me Stephen - I think the sunlight bursting through was a bit too strong. A black and white approach might work better, exposed for the highlights and let everything else silhouette. If you bracketed for HDR, you probably have the option to try this.

I'm not keen on the frame and font either - sorry Stephen!

"Is that a didgeridoo in your pocket or are you just extremely pleased to see me?"

They couldn't do that! The picture would just (if the theory is correct) be a tad underexposed.

Film can be seen as a monolithic light receptor, whereas a sensor is more like a compound eye, which explains the purported light loss across the frame.

At the end of the day whether the phenomenon is real or not, it doesn't really affect general photography - the camera either sorts it out or you adjust the exposure compensation (a common procedure on manual lenses anyway).