First time with bugs!

[ian505c5]

Decided to go out and try my hand at bugs, Don't have a real macro lens, just a 75-300 1:2 but someday maybe . Let me know what you guys think. Thanks

 

[WingedPower]

Wow... I love the shots, though I'm wondering about the lack of contrast in some of them. Namely, the ones with wasps on the grass/husks?

The first one, the wasp on the purple flowers. Awesome. Best of the bunch, as the deep and rich purple really makes the yellow of the wasp pop.

The one with the yellow flower is nice, but the yellow/orange from the flower is so bright and over powering, that the bee/wasp is lost in the composition, color-wise. What does become apparent is the damaged nature of the wings of the insect.

The next one, the white flower, same as the previous photograph. The insect is in focus, but the colors of the insect itself are getting lost in the flower. A wider aperture(2.8-4.0) would have given you the ability to better isolate the insect and give it more visual punch/pop in relationship to the background, which is the flower. In both compositions, because the flower is in focus as well, it becomes part of the subject, which dilutes the focus of the photograph from the insect.

The next one, wasp on husks, is nice. The insect is in focus and its colors pop, while the background and backdrop is out of focus and is a muted color. This really works for me. Love it.

The one after it, however, suffers from a lack of contrast in the whole photograph. There is some kind of haze? Not sure if you were getting light flare or if there was mist/fog/dust/light in the area, but it really reduces the contrast of the scene. Perhaps filtering or adjusting the curves will help. Composition-wise, not as strong as the wasp/husk photo before it, since the head of the insect is more towards the center of the shot than it's body/hind quarters. Note in the previous photograph, the head of the wasp falls into one of the intersections of the rule-of-thirds? This one didn't, and it detracts from the photo composition.

The last one is cool, but due to the over exposure from the flash/light, the insect looks out of focus, even though it is obviously in the plane of focus. Perhaps readjust the exposure/curves to bring out the details of the insect more and take away that over-exposed look.

Overall, love the insect shots!