Various insects

[Alex]

Here are a few macros I did
These are not extreme macros, but anyway, I though I'd post them, to get a
little feedback from experienced photographers.

Thanks in advance,

Alex

I EDITED THE NAMES


Bee

Snail

Pyrrhocoris apterus (Firebug)

Rhaphigaster nebulosa

[doktorstamp]

Hi Alex

Welcome here.

Photos are very good, at least your selection of aperture has been appropriate.

As a suggestion, if you could use the latin name, it will solve your problem of translating, and as someone who speaks several languages I can tell you common names for all things do not exist in all languages.

I look forward to seeing other photos you have taken.

Nigel

[rjlittlefield]

Alex, welcome aboard!

Your pictures are very nice -- excellent composition and use of space to show off the subject in context. I like the crop on the Gendarme -- too many people are stuck on standard aspect ratios.

Your names are fine also. It is very hard (usually impossible!) to identify a specimen down to the level of genus and species. It might be an interesting learning experience for you to track down the latin name for the finest classification you can get to, but even that can be hard.

Sometimes you can use Wikipedia to go between languages, for example from http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escargot you can click the "English" link to get to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snail , or from http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gendarme_%28insecte%29 to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firebug_%28insect%29 .

One important suggestion... People on this forum are used to seeing images inline, using the [img] tag instead of [url]. It takes special effort to click through a [url] link. Some people will not bother, and a few will not even realize they should. Actually I thought your images were blocked by some firewall, when I first saw your posting on my workplace computer.

You can use three [img] tags in each gallery each day. Just be sure to read our posting guidelines. To use the [img] tag, the image must be resized to maximum 800x800 pixels, 200 KB max.

I hope this is helpful. I look forward to seeing more of your pictures!

--Rik

[DaveW]

Nice pictures Alex,

I never crop to a fixed aspect ratio either, but crop to remove distracting objects and to try and emphasise the principle subject, then just resize the crop for posting when I have finished to about 800 pixels on it's longest dimension.

My only criticism of your Bee and Snail crops would be that the in focus blade of grass, or thin leaf, at the top of those pictures is competitive with the subject and draws your eye away from the principle subject.

As I understood the intention of creative cropping was to remove everything that competes with the element you wish the viewer to concentrate on. Things like brighter objects, highly coloured objects, in focus objects etc that are not the principle subject but tend to attract the viewers eye away and cause it to wander from the subject of your picture.

When I hold a piece of paper over the top of your Bee and Snail pictures to cut off the in focus leaf at the top to me it strengthens the picture. However all cropping is a matter of opinion and no two people crop a picture the same. As long as it pleases you it is the correct crop!

I think your last picture is a head on shot of some kind of Shield Bug (using common names!).

Being a cactophile I agree with Nigel. Latin is the international language for naming flora and fauna, chosen because it is a dead language so nationalism as to whose language is chosen does not creep in. I also agree that identifying the species Latin names is a problem and we all post here hoping somebody can do that for us, so not knowing the Latin name should not inhibit us from posting and using the local name, hoping somebody can provide the latin one for us.

Often if you put the local name of the bug or plant into Google, or your search engine though it will come up with a site which will give you the Latin name, but I see no reason not to use both names it is simply that your countries name may not be the same internationally.

For instance the British Bluebell is not the same as the American Bluebell. Many common names that existed in Old World countries were applied by colonists to similar looking creatures or plants they found in the New World, although not the same botanically or zoologically and often of very different families.

DaveW

[augusthouse]

Hi Alex,
Welcome to the forum.

I particularly like the Gendarme and Snail images.

The aspect ratio contributes to these photographs as others have mentioned.

I like the in-focus blade of vegetation in the top-right of the Snail image; for me, it provides a subtle point-of-reference that adds depth and perspective to the whole image.

Craig

[Alex]

Thanks a lot for the feedback !

For the in and out of focus parts (leaves) I think it is just a matter of adding depth to the image without distracting the viewer from the main subject. The problem being finding the good amount of both...which is not easy to do when you have only a very restricted time to take the picture, and that modifying aperture / shutter speed / ISO is very long on a compact camera (I am (was) using a Casio Exilim EX Z-1000).

BTW, I just edited the names. (for the links, I'll put the [img] next time, it is just that I like high-res images...)

Thanks again for the suggestions, comments, and critics


Alex

[rjlittlefield]

it is just that I like high-res images

No problem -- do both! Post the 800-pixel version using [img], but stick next to it a [url] link to a higher resolution version. You can still do three [img] per gallery per day, each with its own [url] link to the high-res version.

It is also possible to make the 800-pixel image clickable, such that the image itself provides a link to the higher resolution version. But that is pretty subtle. A lot of people will not even realize that if they click on the image, they'll get something more. It works better with an explicit note, see for example this post by LordV.

--Rik

Edit: for URL tag formatting after phpBB3 conversion

[Harold Gough]

As a suggestion, if you could use the latin name, it will solve your problem of translating, and as someone who speaks several languages I can tell you common names for all things do not exist in all languages.

Nigel

The common names situation can be even more dauting. With plants (wild flowers) the common names can differ in different localities across such a small country as England, often with several quite different common names per species. Altough Latin names do change sometimes they are always relatively easy to, search for in databases and to allocate to a species being considered.

harold