I ran back inside and changed to the macro lens and was lucky enough to get the following shots. I was using some techniques that Steve suggested with 1/250 second exposure timing and high speed drive to increase the hit rate.
This is a 1:1 crop of the centre of the main image.
Canon 40D at 100mm (EF100mm f/2.8 Macro USM)
1/250 sec at f/11, Iso 200
Canon 580EX II Flash with a home made light diffuser trying to soften the light.
Hand held.
Image 1.
I would have liked to get more of the head in focus. It I had a tripod handy I might have been able to try some focus stacking but I've never done that before.
This was the full image before I cropped it. Same exposure trio as above.
Image 2.
What else can I do to make the cropped image better? Should I adjust colours or cropping? Anything else?
Here is another angle and two different cropping styles used.
Canon 40D at 100mm (EF100mm f/2.8 Macro USM)
1/250 sec at f/11, Iso 200
Canon 580EX II Flash with a home made light diffuser trying to soften the light.
Hand held.
Portrait crop.
Image 3.
Same exposure trio as above.
Landscape crop.
Image 4.
So which cropping format do you prefer and why.
Cheers!
Ps: I'm not certain what type of Hoverfly this is, so if anyone knows I'd be happy to hear from them.
--- Updated 2010-12-17
I noticed the noise the Steve mentioned in my earlier posts, so I thought I'd have a go at post processing it better. This time I selectively performed noise reduction on the area that didn't include the head, and then only performed sharpening on the head itself.
To me anyway, this appears to be a much cleaner image and I'm more happy with it than the previous ones when you view it at full resolution. I'm no Photoshop person though, so this is very much a learning exercise.
Canon 40D at 100mm (EF100mm f/2.8 Macro USM)
1/250 sec at f/11, Iso 200
Canon 580EX II Flash with a home made light diffuser trying to soften the light.
Hand held.
Cheers!
Craig,
ReplyDeleteWow, That first image is awesome. I love the tight crop with those big compound eyes in sharp focus and in your face.
The background is blurred nicely in the smaller image but falls apart badly when enlarged to 100%. I some luminance smoothing is needed. However try to keep the detail in those eyes.
That second image shows just how much you had to crop to fill the frame. I guess that hover-fly was really small or you weren't at 1x macro. I guess this is the reason to get one of those 1x-5x macro lenses Canon has. A full frame image of those eyes would be stunning as a large print.
I like the third crop too. It shows more of the hover-fly and it's perch. However the bright spot in the lower left corner is drawing my eye. I'd try a 4x5 crop to try to remove that or reduce it's size.
The second one is way to small.
The forth one has too much negative space to the right of the image. In this case the fly is stationary so it doesn't need space to move into. The perch is more interesting so showing more of it is more interesting to me.
Brutal Enough?
steve
Hi Steve,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments.
The hoverfly was about 10mm long total, and about 3mm wide at the head.
It was very small. Putting on some extension tubes may have helped a bit, but it was a bit flighty and a couple of times it flew off and lucky for me it decided to come back and land on the same weed, but on a different stalk.
Eventually it flew away, after about 5 minutes of me taking photos.
I'll have another go at processing it and see if I can smooth the luminance noise in the background, while sharpening the eyes.
I'm always struggling to get enough light in my macro shots. I'll have to post a shot of my home made diffuser. I might just have to buy a real one next time I order something from the camera store.
A 1x-5x macro would be awesome, but I have other stuff on my which list above that at the moment :)
Thanks for your tips about the cropping. I'll have another go at that for image 3 and get rid of the bright spot in the lower left corner.
I think you are right about not needing the space in front of it when at rest. I hadn't considered that before, but I'll keep an eye out for it in future.
Constructive criticism is always welcome. Some of the tips you guys have given me are already improving how I'm going. Much appreciated.
Cheers!
Craig.
Hi craig, that first shot of the fly is awesome. Love the eyes, and that he's staring straight at me (and everywhere else at the same time).
ReplyDeleteIn the second shot he's way too small, but thanks for posting it to give me a sense of where you started from. That's a huge crop, but well worth it.
3rd and 4th shots are interesting, but nowhere near as nice as the first. I'd probably rotate the camera 45 degrees towards the front, so I can look down through his body, but then you're getting back to the first shot.
Have to agree with Steve, the 4th shot has too much empty space on the right.
Cheers,
Geoff.
Craig,
ReplyDeleteI think the square crop was much better. All that extra negative space adds nothing to the image. Also sharpening the image has made the front legs and branch quite soft. It was better when it was sharp.
The background is much better though.
steve
Thanks Steve,
ReplyDeleteI'll have another look at that image and see what I can do to bring the front legs and branch back to being sharp. I soft of cheated a bit with my sharpening and softening. I'll have another go. Photoshop is a tricky beast :)
Cheers!