Hop-hop

Critiques [Translate]

•  
• dew77 (13209)
• [2005-08-16 10:11]

Hello Riaan!
Very nice close up.POV,details and lighting are wonderful.DOF and sharpness are enough.I like this work a lot.TFS...:-)

•  
• duckpond (323)
• [2005-08-17 15:47]

Nice shot. Die komposisie is goed.

They are not pretty up close

•  
• gerhardt (11585)
• [2005-09-01 16:30]
• [+]

Hi Riaan,

This is the common Garden Locust (Acanthacris ruficornis) Even though the lens says "Super Macro" it is not a true (1:1) macro lens. It does not mean you won't be able to take quality photos like this one. But true 1X magnification or larger will be very difficult.

This photo is very close to life size and the critter is big. Therefore you need the most DOF you can muster and given the available light you could have gained more. F13@1/200s or even switch to ISO200 to use a larger aperture setting to get a larger DOF.

Nice composition.

•  
• klemmg (1719)
• [2005-11-25 10:25]
• [+]

Hi Riaan,
nice shot, I especially like the colour tones and composition.
To max out DOF, in addition to Gerhardt's good advice, carefully align the body of your subject to the camera plane, to maximise what will be inside the sharp area. For a lot of shots it is simply not possible to get the whole animal sharp without additional lighting. Then carefully focus on the eye, as that always is the eye-catcher, naturally (or whatever part you would like to draw the viewer's main attention to).
For larger critters that can be approached (like this one?), a very lightweight (=easy handling when shooting - it matters!) and not too expensive macro lense is the canon 60mm. However, it will not work with every camera (too small area for full format); yours is compatibel in any case.
Regards,
Gabi

•  
• glazzaro (4565)
• [2005-12-05 15:09]

Good shot, exposure is nice and the color is good. Detail is a little soft. You can resolve this by sharpening 1 pixel radius at 75%. Also I would consider running a surface blur on the BG and reducing the input levels. This will have the effect of giving you more depth.

Greg