A Few New Damselflies

crotermund · Post by **crotermund** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 12:08 pm

Ruby Damsel...

Brown Damsel...

Black Damesl...

DaveW · Post by **DaveW** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 12:36 pm

Cracking pictures Craig. What sort of lighting set up are you using as I presume these are flash rather than available light because I can see twin reflections in the eye indicating a twin flash set up? Are you using any form of diffusion on the flashes?

Plus from the orientation of the eye reflections the camera seems to have been in portrait orientation for some and landscape for others so I presume these are crops?

DaveW

Bruce Williams · Post by **Bruce Williams** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 1:16 pm

All three pics are absolutely stunning! Pic1 is my favourite - it's just so crisp and clean looking. Smallest neg. is loss of some detail thru reflection on the wing (pics 1 and 2). Even the reflection on the leaf works well on pic1.

Very well done

Bruce

crotermund · Post by **crotermund** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 1:33 pm

Thanks Dave. You are correct that these are all done with a flash. I use the Canon 580ex with a lumiquest diffuser. These are all crops, but they are also all landscape orientation shots. I see what you mean regarding the reflection, though, as it appears to be portrait mode. Good eye on the eyes.

PhilH · Post by **PhilH** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 2:11 pm

No.1 for me too but all are superb, very sharp

crotermund · Post by **crotermund** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 2:19 pm

Thanks Bruce. I struggle with the wing reflection problem. I haven't been able to get the results I want with natural light, but I can't seem to diffuse the light enough (yet) with the flash to avoid that reflection. Any suggestions?

DaveW · Post by **DaveW** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 3:52 pm

They always used to say with portraiture unless the eyes had been retouched to leave only one catch-light you could discern the lighting from the reflection in the eyes. You can tell where the lights are placed and if square or rectangular reflections if a soft-box is being used and if doughnut shaped a ring light was used.

You can even get hot spots on the wings from available light shots though. They are difficult to avoid with transparent wings.

DaveW

beetleman · Post by **beetleman** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 4:00 pm

WOW...three excellent photos craig. All three Damselflies are beautiful.

Danny · Post by **Danny** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 10:46 pm

Phew, you sure can shoot Craig. Just stunning shots and subjects. Superb details.

All the best Craig, I'm in awe

Danny.

puzzledpaul · Post by **puzzledpaul** » Thu Jun 14, 2007 5:05 am

Splendid shots of great subject matter ... well done

You mentioned they're cropped ... to what extent?

pp

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Fri Jun 15, 2007 11:25 pm

Some of the finest damselfly shots I've ever seen. Very beautiful!

Pic #1 appears to be largely direct sun. Notice the crispness of the shadow, directly underneath the damsel, apparently cast by a very narrow angle source coming from slightly in the background, with a second somewhat more fuzzy but equally intense shadow cast by a light source somewhat above the camera.

I notice also that the background of all these shots is fairly bright, suggesting that a fairly large fraction of the total light is coming from the environment, not the flash.

I'm thinking that the two highlights on the eyes are one from the sun, one from the flash.

Craig, what do you think about this theory? Do you have any feel for how the light balance works out?

--Rik

crotermund · Post by **crotermund** » Sat Jun 16, 2007 2:58 pm

Thanks a lot everyone. Paul - I would guess these to be cropped about 25%, but I'm not exactly certain. I looked at the originals and that seems about right.

Rik - you sure have the analytical eye. These were taken in the early afternoon on sunny days so you are right about the light from the environment. Regarding the highlights in the eyes being one from the sun and one from the flash, this seems like a pretty good theory, but I really don't know. Another thing that I find is odd that Dave got me thinking about is the shape of the reflection in the eyes. My diffuser is rectangular with the long end of the rectangle on the bottom, but it almost appears as if it would be oriented up & down if you look at the reflection in the eyes.

I wish I could avoid using the flash on a sunny day like on the first one especially, but as I mentioned earlier in the post I have a hard time getting the results I want using natural light.

puzzledpaul · Post by **puzzledpaul** » Sat Jun 16, 2007 4:31 pm

<< guess these to be cropped about 25% >>

Craig - sorry to be a pain, but I'm not quite sure what you mean by this ...

... you're cropping each dimension to be approx 75% of the original length - and thus throwing away nearly half (7/16) the area

or throwing away 25% of the area?

Am curious 'cos I've recently been spending some time in similar (sized)company and wondering about 'frame fill' extent etc

pp

crotermund · Post by **crotermund** » Sat Jun 16, 2007 5:41 pm

No prob, Paul, you are not a pain at all and just to be clear I'm not trying to rhyme here.

I just checked again, specifically on the first one and I believe I took off 1/4 to 1/3 to obtain the resulting image retaining about 66% to 75% of the original.

Ok, that was a guess just eyeballing the original, I should have just looked at the dimensions to begin with. Original was 3504x2336 and my cropped version is 2100x1400. I apologize, but looking at the actual dimensions it looks like it is a 40% crop meaning 60% of the original image was retained.

Is this more along the lines of what you expected, Paul, or similar to the subjects you are working with?

DaveW · Post by **DaveW** » Sun Jun 17, 2007 12:20 am

"Another thing that I find is odd that Dave got me thinking about is the shape of the reflection in the eyes. My diffuser is rectangular with the long end of the rectangle on the bottom, but it almost appears as if it would be oriented up & down if you look at the reflection in the eyes."

Craig,

I wonder if it could be the distorting mirror effect that you get in funfairs which distort your features? If you look at their eyes they are a vertical oval like an egg standing on end, therefore would they compress the reflection of the light more in the lateral direction than in the vertical one? Human eyes are circular so would not distort a reflection in any direction in the same manner?

DaveW