Fly | Relaxing on the Tree

[Ironlegs]

Took this one today, i am kinda happy with the result.
Thoughts ?
Here it looks really sharp, on flickr maximized its not sharp but in my computer maximized, its sharp again Weird.

Fly | Relaxing on the Tree by Ironlegs Photography, on Flickr

 

[Overread]

what did you take the shot with?

 

[Ironlegs]

what did you take the shot with?

Canon EOS 450D, Canon EF 100mm f/2.8, why ?

 

[Overread]

Hmm what settings did you use for the shot (flickr isn't saying). It looks only what I can describe as "rough". Not quite the quality nor crispness and clarity that I'd expect to see in the shot.

There is a harshness to the light that certainly isn't helping, but shouldn't be the cause of all the roughness in the shot itself. .

Foreground blur is also a tricky thing, its very hard to do right and not have it come off as a distraction - in this case I think its the latter; a distraction to the shot. I can totally see that you want to balance the fly hanging on the side of the wood with something on the left side, but at the same time I think its feeling just too much distracting because there's nothing there - there's that out of focus blob that makes you want to push it aside to see behind it or step back to resolve what it is.

 

[Ironlegs]

Hmm what settings did you use for the shot (flickr isn't saying). It looks only what I can describe as "rough". Not quite the quality nor crispness and clarity that I'd expect to see in the shot.

There is a harshness to the light that certainly isn't helping, but shouldn't be the cause of all the roughness in the shot itself. .

Foreground blur is also a tricky thing, its very hard to do right and not have it come off as a distraction - in this case I think its the latter; a distraction to the shot. I can totally see that you want to balance the fly hanging on the side of the wood with something on the left side, but at the same time I think its feeling just too much distracting because there's nothing there - there's that out of focus blob that makes you want to push it aside to see behind it or step back to resolve what it is.

Thanks for your reply,

I used f/5.0 and 1/100 and a Metz flash on-camera (without diffuser ), any tips please how to fix the things you noticed in the future ?

 

[Overread]

Flash on camera without any diffuser is going to give a harsh light to work with, especially if its the main light (ergo without it you'd get a black shot). I'm guessing the flash is a major part of the light in the shot since the background is very black (a common result because without the flash light you get an underexposed shot - and because of the inverse fall off of light by the time its reached and returned to the background areas its not giving enough light to expose anything).

I would suggest looking up something like a Lumiquest softbox - something from their normal or even large size or any softbox of similar scale. The idea here is to increase the size of the light source relative to the subject - the bigger the area the more diffusion and the softer the light.*

The next stage is to use a light bracket so that you can get the flash off the camera - this gives you more to play with lighting wise and can let you give a more "natural" light angle - ergo you're trying to copy the sun's kind of angles not directly above, but above and to the side of a subject - giving you a nice soft directional light with some shadows. Light head-on to a subject can be good for record or detail shots, but its very flat light artistically speaking (esp because all the shadows are hidden or simply not present so there is reduced contrast differences going on).


*and before you say that the sun gives a harsh light and is vast remember that the sun in the day's sky is a very small local source of intense light relative to the subject on the ground.