Mantis

[McCluskey]

First image post. Hope it works out, anyway, here you go..

These were 3 shots of a Mantis I found in my container garden last fall. I'd really appreciate critiques on any aspect of the images, composition, technique, processing, you name it.

All shot on D200, 105mm macro lens,




ISO400, F10, 1/30



ISO400, F13, 1/20



ISO400, F4, 1/200


Thanks for any comments. Looking forward to participating in the forums and learning from all of you -

Mike

[rjlittlefield]

Mike,

I'm glad to see you got registered OK. I was sorry to hear about the initial difficulties, but at least from my standpoint, the fix was easy -- a bit of explanation and now you're here!

Regarding forum guidelines, this posting looks perfect. 3 images in one forum in one day, all at just the right size in pixels and bytes.

The images are a style that I cannot recall seeing here before -- a really interesting mix of pastel and intense colors in the backgrounds. Postures and compositions are attractive. Very pleasing and promising images!

The one downside I notice -- and I'm scratching my head about this a little -- is that nothing looks really crisp. For some subjects and lenses, that would make perfect sense, but it seems like a praying mantis posed as in your first pic, using a dedicated macro lens at f/10, ought to have some detail somewhere that just snaps.

Do you have any idea what's going on? How have the images been processed? Have you tried adding a bit of sharpening, say using an "unsharp mask" filter with a small radius (~1 pixel) ?

--Rik

[beetleman]

Welcome to the forums Mike. Very nice looking first post. The composition on all three are great and the ISO400 looks like it gave you some nice backgrounds. They do almost look like watercolors. Looks like Geraniums in the background

[McCluskey]

Thanks for the comments-

Rik- in regard to the sharpness/ 'snap' issue, I think part of my problem is I didn't choose one area to focus on well enough, leaving everything a little off. I probably should have gone more for the eyes rather than just the head. In the heat of the moment of - "OMG a mantis! - that would make a good shot" - I probably needed to compose myself before I tried to compose the picture.

Regarding the processing, I'm sorta new to digital (probably only a little more than a year - when I found out about my wife being pregnant, I knew film costs and processing delays wouldn't cut it anymore with a new favorite subject on the way!) so I dont have a great workflow yet. I think all the images have a little sharpening to them though. I ordered lightroom a few days ago, should arrive today. Hopefully I'll be getting better with this aspect.

BM- I was happy with the geraniums in the background. Interestingly, the background of the first photo is my old house. In reality it is much whiter than it appears in the photo. I dont know what went on to give it that nice color shift. (It's not post processed that way, as I mentioned I do very little PP as I am still trying to figure that part out)

-Mike

[Mike B in OKlahoma]

Thanks for the comments-

Rik- in regard to the sharpness/ 'snap' issue, I think part of my problem is I didn't choose one area to focus on well enough, leaving everything a little off. I probably should have gone more for the eyes rather than just the head. In the heat of the moment of - "OMG a mantis! - that would make a good shot" - I probably needed to compose myself before I tried to compose the picture.

Regarding the processing, I'm sorta new to digital (probably only a little more than a year - when I found out about my wife being pregnant, I knew film costs and processing delays wouldn't cut it anymore with a new favorite subject on the way!) so I dont have a great workflow yet. I think all the images have a little sharpening to them though. I ordered lightroom a few days ago, should arrive today. Hopefully I'll be getting better with this aspect.

You might want to look at the way Arthur Morris does bird shots, your style seems a lot like his (subject in focus and a vividly colored out-of-focus background). It can produce some very pleasing shots!

For what it's worth, the first time I tried macro shooting, my results were so dismal I literally didn't try shooting macro again for a year! You're off to a much better start than I had. :-)

BM- I was happy with the geraniums in the background. Interestingly, the background of the first photo is my old house. In reality it is much whiter than it appears in the photo. I dont know what went on to give it that nice color shift. (It's not post processed that way, as I mentioned I do very little PP as I am still trying to figure that part out)

Weird, you could've convinced me the bg in the first shot was the sky! I'd agree with Rik that these don't quite look sharp. You might want to check your shutter speed if it was windy and/or you were handholding. Unfortunately for you, you've got good equipment so you can't blame it on the equipment! :-)