Predatory fly with flying ant
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- rjlittlefield
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Predatory fly with flying ant
This fly was around 1/2" long. It seems to have caught a prince or princess flying ant.
This image has been processed through Noise Ninja. I was not completely happy with what it did at first -- part of the long skinny seed pod that the fly is sitting on seemed to have been converted to "plastic", and some of the subtle venation of the ant's wings disappeared. It's probably nothing that you'd notice without seeing the original, but of course I have the original. So I masked back original pixels in the subject, leaving the background as the Noise Ninja'd version.
Here is the original, non-noise-reduced version.
And here's the raw Noise Ninja'd version.
--Rik
Technical: Canon SD700 IS, auto-everything. JPEG file reports 1/500 @ f/2.8, 5.8mm. Cropped and resized to 70% of actual pixels. Manual stack of 2 images.
Edit: to show three versions of noise reduction.
Last edited by rjlittlefield on Tue Jun 12, 2007 11:22 pm, edited 2 times in total.
- Mike B in OKlahoma
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This is an extremely cool shot, something I'd love to have photographed! I think the auto-everything lost some detail on the dark fly, alas.
Mike Broderick
Oklahoma City, OK, USA
Constructive critiques of my pictures, and reposts in this forum for purposes of critique are welcome
"I must obey the inscrutable exhortations of my soul....My mandate includes weird bugs."
--Calvin
Oklahoma City, OK, USA
Constructive critiques of my pictures, and reposts in this forum for purposes of critique are welcome
"I must obey the inscrutable exhortations of my soul....My mandate includes weird bugs."
--Calvin
- rjlittlefield
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- Mike B in OKlahoma
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In fairness, there is a heck of a lot of dynamic range in this shot! A lot for the sensor to handle.rjlittlefield wrote:Actually I'm pretty happy with the exposure, considering that my eye was reporting the fly as a featureless black blob. There is some additional detail that I can make visible with a curves adjustment, but that'll have to wail til tomorrow, 'cuz I've used up my three images for today.
I still wish I had the shot!
Mike Broderick
Oklahoma City, OK, USA
Constructive critiques of my pictures, and reposts in this forum for purposes of critique are welcome
"I must obey the inscrutable exhortations of my soul....My mandate includes weird bugs."
--Calvin
Oklahoma City, OK, USA
Constructive critiques of my pictures, and reposts in this forum for purposes of critique are welcome
"I must obey the inscrutable exhortations of my soul....My mandate includes weird bugs."
--Calvin
- Bruce Williams
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Nice shot and work here Rik. A Robber fly by the looks of that antenna jutting out like that. Black subjects are hard Rik, bumble bees for one, in this I think its bang on. The background and what looks like a winged ant are spot on. I like it as is. I just use the noise control in PhotoImpact now days and many of my shots don't have anything done to them Rik. mind you, many of them need it IMO. I should sit down one day and go through them.
All the best Rik, nice m8t, very nice.
Danny.
All the best Rik, nice m8t, very nice.
Danny.
Worry about the image that comes out of the box, rather than the box itself.
- rjlittlefield
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Here's what popped out with a bit of Photoshop's "Shadow/Highlight" tool.
This is with 30% shadows, 0% highlights.
I have not played with this Shadow/Highlight tool before. It shows a lot of promise!
I like the result a lot better than what I could get with Curves, and it was much easier to use.
--Rik
This is with 30% shadows, 0% highlights.
I have not played with this Shadow/Highlight tool before. It shows a lot of promise!
I like the result a lot better than what I could get with Curves, and it was much easier to use.
--Rik
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