Ladybugs

[TobyMac]

Found these little guys in the garden the other day.

C&C always welcome.


_MG_8951 by Tobias Weber, on Flickr


_MG_8944 by Tobias Weber, on Flickr


_MG_8923 by Tobias Weber, on Flickr

[Bobobird]

Very nice captures. I like #1 best.

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Tobias,

What do you think of them?
What would you try to do different if shooting again now?

I have my thoughts, some relate to shooting, some to opprtunities in PP.
I could say, but I think you'll learn more if you tell me/us first.

[TobyMac]

Hi Dave,

First of all I would use a tripod next time and I would make sure that I have batteries for my external flash which would have helped me a lot. From a composition point of view I like 1 and 3, but 2 I would center the Ladybug more.

Otherwise I kinda like them the way they are, except that the greens might be little bit to Vibrant. The first one I might work a bit better if it were cropped a bit tighter and if the bright white on the head were reduced a little.
As for the second one, as said before, I don't like the composition, there's to much leaf and not enough bug. I would also brighten it up a bit so the detail in the Ladybugs face becomes a bit clearer.
The third I think the color lacks a little, or its slightly over exposed, I know something is missing but I can't put my finger on what it is.

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Tobias,

FWIW, I wouldn't try to follow these with a tripod, ours move too fast, not "fast, fast", but about a cm/second when looking for food.

The problem I find is that without the external flash, the subject lighting is usually sub-standard, so I'd agree there.

Green is certainly dominant, the bugs look under saturated, but I know they often can be like that in reality, they are not all the classic bright red.

The other problem I find is they inhabit unphotogenic plants
This gives lots of sharp and unappealing detail

I'm sure that a lot of the issues could be improved in selective post processing with these, particularly the exposure, colour and contrast issues.



The third is definately over exposed on the highlights, but it is backlit, so that could be forgiven with some cunning PP to enhance the subject. However, I know you'd prefer to get it right in camera (AFAP) and I think some fill flash would help #3. The wings poking out the back are a bit of a distraction to a casual observer unfortunately, but there's not much to be done about them (well, aside from the obvious).

Probably waaay too much,

I wouldn't normally take off the wings like that, but it was 'untidy'.

I quite liked the colourful specular bokeh and the diagonals, so I tried to leave them in with the crop to remove distracting bright spots and give a larger area of image to the subject.

Let me know if it is too much change and I'll remove it.

#1 is the best composition, but it is also a little over exposed, those wing cases and false eyes blow so easily.

[TobyMac]

Hey

I like the composition and the changes you made, the only thing I don't like is the amount of grain in the pic, because it was such a low light situation and I didn't have my flash I had to use the highest ISO I had available.

[Nass]

I like #3, played with it a little, hope you don't mind

[Dave Humphries]

Hey

I like the composition and the changes you made, the only thing I don't like is the amount of grain in the pic, because it was such a low light situation and I didn't have my flash I had to use the highest ISO I had available.

That wouldn't be a problem if you did it from the full size RAW though, especially if noise reduction was applied, I had your sharpened noise frozen into the jpg image and there's not much can be done then without serious compromises on sharpness.

Cheers,