Dragonfly

[Photogenic]

An old one but it's a favourite Yellow Striped Flutterer Dragonfly - Ryothemis phyllis

Linda

[Grumpy John]

Lovely image Linda, nice and sharp with great detail in the wings. The only negative comment I would make is that the dragonfly gets a bit lost in the background, but when photographing insects in the wild you have to take what you can get, it is still a great image.
I am just getting in to macro and would like to know your settings and equipment for this shot, if you don't mind sharing

[Photogenic]

Camera - Canon 7D
Lens - Tamron 90mm Macro
Focal Length - 90mm
Exposure - 1/250 sec; f/4.0; ISO 400; AV; Pattern metering
Flash - did not fire

I like uncovering insects that are hidden and often shoot them so you can just see them coming out of the background - like this one.
This one I possibly could have moved to get rid of the distraction from the background but would have lost the angle so then it became one for my what's hiding there series

[Grumpy John]

Thanks for the feedback Linda, much appreciated. I understand perfectly where you are coming from re capturing insects emerging from the background.

[HansE]

I must agree with John on the background and did a 1 minute look at how it would look a little darker. It would definetly improve the look of the image.
My selection was too rough too share

[Isac]

Very sharp and detailed Linda - nice job. The consensus seems to be that the background is dominating the image and thus causing the subject to blend into it. A simple solution is to just desaturate the BG using a Hue/Sat layer mask. I hope you don't mind the edit but this is the result I got.

[Isac]

If you have Photoshop, I can send you the PSD file so you can see the adjustment layers. I use WeTransfer.com to send larger files up to 2GB. It's very simple - just drag and drop and send. No sign-up either.

[Photogenic]

Thanks Isac - I will see what I come up with I haven't heard of wetransfer.com but I assume it's much the same as mailbigfile.com
I have worked on adjustment layers before so I think I should be OK with it - I do like the brightness I have in my background though - it's why the image appeals to me so much - so I need to try a few things to see which way I prefer.

[Isac]

Hi Linda, I would assume they are the same type of large image tools for transfer.
With the edit, we all see things differently so this was just my version. If both Kevin and yourself prefer the image as is then that's fine. To me - with my tired old eyes - the yellows in the background and the yellow on the dragonfly wings were much the same colour and I found it a bit difficult to separate them. I will refrain from editing images from now on so if you want me to remove it, it's not a problem.

[kevinj]

Very nice,sharp and well lit,the bg doesn`t bother me,all my shots are "as is",I take them as I find them.Taking another look,Isacs rework has made the image look a bit Flat,prefer the original.

[Photogenic]

thank you :-)