First macro post

Arrowsmith

Hi,

I've been admiring the posts on this forum for some time now and finally decided to post an image of my own. To be honest, my enthusiasm far exceeds my skills but I figured it was time to fish or cut bait (so to speak). I'm relatively new to photography (in general) and macro photography (in particular). In any case, I'd welcome any and all suggestions as to how I might improve the quality of my shots.

Thanks.
Bill

Lord Vetinari

Looks pretty good - would perhap be better if the fly was at top right of the frame looking in to it. Tend to look better if the subject is given more room in the frame in the direction it is looking.
Brian v.

Arrowsmith

Lord Vetinari wrote: »

Looks pretty good - would perhap be better if the fly was at top right of the frame looking in to it. Tend to look better if the subject is given more room in the frame in the direction it is looking.
Brian v.

Thanks, Brian. Your comment is very helpful. I'll concentrate more on the orientation of the subject. I must confess that, up to this point, I haven't been thinking much about composition. Getting the subject in focus, and achieving something like proper exposure, has been frustrating enough. Old eyes and somewhat less than steady hands haven't helped. In any case, here's another that may be a slight improvement (although a bit oof).

BTW, I'm sure you hear this a lot but you're magnificent images are truly an inspiration.

Bill

Lord Vetinari

Fully understand - It's normal to only start worrying about composition when your fairly confident about focus and exposure etc.
Agreed 2nd shot better from a composition POV but a slightly awkward shooting angle- always hard if the bug is facing away from you.
Brian v.

Arrowsmith

Lord Vetinari wrote: »

Fully understand - It's normal to only start worrying about composition when your fairly confident about focus and exposure etc.
Agreed 2nd shot better from a composition POV but a slightly awkward shooting angle- always hard if the bug is facing away from you.
Brian v.

Brian,

Thanks. I see what you mean. What do you think of this shot? If I had it to do over again, I would have gotten the whole damselfly (?) in the frame instead of cutting it off. Is the horizontal orientation acceptable? All my shots seem to me to be slightly OOF (as compared to many of the great photos I see here). I'm trying not to rely on a tripod and shoot everything hand-held but the whole "leaning in" to focus thing is really tough. Maybe I'm just plagued with excessive postural sway. A question I've been dying to ask is if all of your perfectly clear shots (which are spectacular BTW) are that way right out the camera or does PP sharpening play some role?

Thanks, again.

Bill

GOLDENORFE

a good start, damselfly the best .

getting an image right straight from camera is preferable, if your lighting is good minimal post work is necessary. unless you are focus stacking
try to compose how you want the shot too look through the viewfinder instead of cropping
phil

Arrowsmith

GOLDENORFE wrote: »

a good start, damselfly the best .

getting an image right straight from camera is preferable, if your lighting is good minimal post work is necessary. unless you are focus stacking
try to compose how you want the shot too look through the viewfinder instead of cropping
phil

Thanks for the comment, Phil.
I've been shooting at 1:1, but the lure of cropping is strong.:D Would you say that most shots posted on the forum are uncropped?

Bill

GOLDENORFE

probably most of the best shots are not cropped, you loose too much detail and there for ultimate picture quality by cropping.

cropping only works when the original picture quality is extremely good like Brian ocasionally does with 21m pixels:D

Arrowsmith

GOLDENORFE wrote: »

probably most of the best shots are not cropped, you loose too much detail and there for ultimate picture quality by cropping.

cropping only works when the original picture quality is extremely good like Brian ocasionally does with 21m pixels:D

Thanks!

Bill

Lord Vetinari

Just to add re cropping - I sometimes do what I call marginal cropping ie slight cropping for compositional reasons rather than magnification ones on the finished pic. I also sometimes post more extreme crops just to show the detail in the original picture that is lost on downsizing for the web but always state the photo has been cropped. As Phil says- always best to get as much right in the original picture as possible but I do still get suprises sometimes with OOF elements in the photo that I hadn't noticed in the viewfinder.
Brian V.

Arrowsmith

Lord Vetinari wrote: »

Just to add re cropping - I sometimes do what I call marginal cropping ie slight cropping for compositional reasons rather than magnification ones on the finished pic. I also sometimes post more extreme crops just to show the detail in the original picture that is lost on downsizing for the web but always state the photo has been cropped. As Phil says- always best to get as much right in the original picture as possible but I do still get suprises sometimes with OOF elements in the photo that I hadn't noticed in the viewfinder.
Brian V.

Brian and Phil,

Thanks for the help. Your comments have been very helpful.
Just out of curiosity, if you do need to crop for composition, is it better to re-size and then crop or crop the original and then re-size for the web?

Bill

GOLDENORFE

always crop first, the re size
phil

Arrowsmith

GOLDENORFE wrote: »

always crop first, the re size
phil

Thanks, Phil.