Moth

[NateS]

Hey everybody. My first photo to post. I'm just looking for a critique on this photo I took last night. I did a little post processing, but not much. I did the BW background to bring out the moth since the background is somewhat blah.

Taken w/ Canon A620

 

[marcuspeddle]

I've never seen a moth like this. Is that its natural colour? Beautiful. Focus is very good here and the picture is sharp but I don't like the B&W background very much. It's a simple background so I don't think it needs to be do-colourised. What colour was the steel?
Just my opinion. Thanks for sharing.

 

[TCimages]

Nice shot. I'm pretty sure this is a Pandorus Sphinx.

 

[NateS]

The window frame was white with some grose brown. The full color version just looks really dirty in the background (because it is). I tried messing with the colors and lightness in the background to make it less distracting, but nothing seemed to help. I thought the BW background helped keep the background from being too distracting.

Also on the color version you can see a bunch of water spots on the window above and below which is also kind of distracting. Desaturating made the water spots pretty much disappear.

 

[LaFoto]

TC, could be some say "nice shot" is a bit too little as a critiquing comment in this special forum. Though you might have come in here via "New Posts" and totally overlooked where you ended, which happens to me FREQUENTLY, for I mostly check the forum via the "New Posts" button and not the general index.

That said, I thinkm NateS, you focused well on the moth and you spotted it well.
Photographically, however, it is kind of "just straightforward". You document the moth as you saw it and found it interesting, and we can now look at the moth and find it interesting, too. Everything is to be seen, its colours, its bit of fur on body and wings. The sheer size of its wings.

Something tells me that a "scientifically documenting" photo of this kind would best be presented with an all white background (given that you changed the background you had, anyway). So far I still don't know how to cut out subjects from pictures to place them on an all white background, but that is what I might feel invited to learn for this very photo.

 

[NateS]

Thanks for the critique. This was a hard one to get in the first place for me. He was up kind of high so I had the tripod on top of my step stool. I've thought of some creative ideas after the photo (of course) like shooting from the otherside of the window looking in at the moth. Anyway, I'm still pretty new at this, so appreciate the critiques and hopefully I can get some even better shots next time.

 

[TCimages]

TC, could be some say "nice shot" is a bit too little as a critiquing comment in this special forum. Though you might have come in here via "New Posts" and totally overlooked where you ended, which happens to me FREQUENTLY, for I mostly check the forum via the "New Posts" button and not the general index.

That said, I thinkm NateS, you focused well on the moth and you spotted it well.
Photographically, however, it is kind of "just straightforward". You document the moth as you saw it and found it interesting, and we can now look at the moth and find it interesting, too. Everything is to be seen, its colours, its bit of fur on body and wings. The sheer size of its wings.

Something tells me that a "scientifically documenting" photo of this kind would best be presented with an all white background (given that you changed the background you had, anyway). So far I still don't know how to cut out subjects from pictures to place them on an all white background, but that is what I might feel invited to learn for this very photo.

Yep, I use the RSS feeds. Although I didn't realize you couldn't make a generalized comment. sorry