First Macro Shot - Dragonfly

[TM22]

Taken with Canon EOS Rebel XS. Just got my new lens filter shipped in a couple days ago but the weather wasn't good enough. Finally the Sun came out today and I snatched a quick macro photo of this Dragonfly.

 

[eccs19]

Hey, that's nice for a first macro. Well done.

 

[kundalini]

I've never used a macro lens filter, but I think you need a smaller aperture. With my macro lens I seldom open wider than f/13 and also add on a flash most times.

Your shot seems to be a bit overexposed, the Dof seems a bit shallow, the focal point seems a bit off (maybe due to camera shake) and you cut off the wings, which in and of itself isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it doesn't seem to be intentional. A difusser for the sun would do a world of good on this shot.

 

[MelissaMarieImagery]

Awesome shot! I LOVE the full view, however, careful about putting up such high res photos up on the internet! Not saying anyone here would take your shot and try to pass it off as their own -- but a passerby sifting through the forums could very well decide to make that image theirs.

 

[DigitalScape]

A nice composition, but I agree that it is a bit over exposed, needs more DOF (i.e. higher f/stop - f/11- f/16), and the focus is a bit soft on the image.

 

[Overread]

Had a look at it in bigsize and the macro filter certainly seems to have a decent quality to it. I'm not 100% sure of the settings you used for this shot - save the ISO which was 400, if you could fill me in on the aperture and shutter speed you used (opera seems a bit confused) it would help.

Also I noticed that your overexposure problem might not just be the sun, but because you had exposure compensation set to 1/3 overexpose on the settings - not a good move to make in such bright lighting. I would also have lowered my ISO - the exif says flash was also used, so in that case you can easily lower your ISO down to 200 or even 100 without problems.

I would also recomend shooting in full manual mode with flash - you see the cameras built in meter does not meter for the flash, just on the lighting present on the shot at the time - so it will easily select as slower shutter speed (for example) when the flash means you can easily shoot faster.
For a refrence I typically shoot with f13, ISO 200, 1/200sec when using flash.

As a final point your focus does appear off - you've hit hte back of the bug and missed the all important eyes - though I can't tell if you used AF or manual focusing for this bit.

Its a good shot for a first macro shot and a tricky subject (often as not) as well so well done