First Time Using An Editor,... Help?

[Knickle25]

Good Morning All,

I went out again cause I have caught the bug (no pun intended) and took a bunch more photos with a Nikon D3100 and the stock lenses that come with it. I downloaded a free photo editor software cause I wanted to take a stab at using one of those to make my photos look better,... yea... I think all i did was made it look worse! My wife says she likes it but she has to be nice, I need some strong real truthful opinions on what I did wrong and any ideas what I can do to fix it? The background, to me, just looks... too much? I dunno,... I guess it doesn't really help that the background is a lot of the same color as the bug. What could I have done better with taking the photo and any ideas what I can do in the photo editor to maybe fix it a little? I downloaded and used GIMP btw. Thanks all for your honest critiques!

 

[Knickle25]

tried with another pic as well,... I think this one looks a little better but still not real good,... This post processing thing is the hardest part!! The taking pics is fun!

 

[weepete]

Honestly, it's an ok shot. Depth of field is a little shallow, as the head appers to be a little out of focus. I notice you took this at 1/400th sec f5 ISO 200 at a 100mm focal length. As your subject is pretty stationary you could have sacrificed some of that shutter speed and stopped the aperture down to f8 or f11 to max out your DOF. You could have shot 1/200th sec at f8 and ISO 200 for the same exposure, or 1/200th sec at f11 and ISO 500.

The rough rule of thumb with marco is to get the eyes sharp, and in order to do this it can be useful to shoot a burst in continuous focus mode while slightly moving you body back or forward moving the pain of focus. Hopefully you'll hit one shot in perfect focus.

Is this your original shot or the edited one?

The blacks look like they could be just blown and so do the whites in the body, not a shot killer and may be recoverable in post but something to look out for. In post you could burn the background down a bit and add a very subtle vingette. That could help the dradonfly stand out from the background more. Crop to loose the dead space (if it doesn't add to the shot get rid of it) and you've got some nice diagonal lines to use in composition.

2nd shot is nice and yes the colours work better.

 

[Derrel]

I think your second shot is the better of the two from both a technical and an artistic standpoint.

My feeling is that you will get better and too much over analysis of your first attempts is not worthwhile. If you apply yourself you will become better really quickly. Insect close up photos of this type demand a perfect technique, and I don't think it will be easy to overcome the many technical challenges that this type of subject matter presents. For example shooting it at f/5: something as big as a dragonfly at 100 mm from close distance at f/5 is almost doomed to depth of field that is insufficiently shallow to record the whole of a subject like a at dragonfly in crisp, perfect focus. dragonflies are a very difficult insect to capture in perfect focus unless their wings are spread out And are in just the right orientation with the depth of field plane.

when you are working in bright sunlight There is very little advantage to keeping the ISO at 100 and instead it is much better to boost the ISO. there is very little advantage to keeping the ISO at 100 and instead it is much better to boost the ISO to 400 or 500 or 640,so that you can stop the lens down to much a much smaller aperture than f/5.

 

[Ysarex]

What could I have done better with taking the photo and any ideas what I can do in the photo editor to maybe fix it a little?

You got some good advice about what to do taking the photo. You're observation is correct that the dragon fly blends too well into the background (critters tend to do that). So the thing to do editing the image is find ways to better differentiate the subject from the background.

I reduced the saturation of the background greens and darkened the background overall.

Joe

 

[PJM]

Nice photos as is. And good question because I learned a few things reading the responses.

One thing I learned in photo editing is that just because the adjustment sliders go from 0 to 100 (or whatever) you don't have to move them that far. Sometimes just subtle changes to them make significant differences in the photos.

Keep shooting. Best of luck.