Please criticize this photograph. :)

It's my first time to take a picture of an insect. Well, probably not the first time but the first time to capture a bee and... I just want this photo to be criticize so that I'll learn from my mistakes. :)

Tags: bee, macro, maeda

0 members like this

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Maeda on May 28, 2009 at 11:08pm

Thanks Mike, I'll work on that. :D

Permalink Reply by Mulgabill on May 28, 2009 at 5:32am

Well Maeda! I have never before seen a bee like this one! This one appears to have the body of a wasp and wings of a butterfly. This is an observation and not a critique. To me the photograph has most of the elements I look for in my own pix. One suggestion, if I may. You may be able to increase the overall impact if you try and get the subject; in this cae your bee, to appear to have some where to move. In this pic I mean have the bee on the R side of the frame and give an impression of moving through the cfram to the L> keep up the good work M

Permalink Reply by Maeda on May 28, 2009 at 11:11pm

I was quite lucky though when I shot that, just after clicking the shutter button, it flew away. I also couldn't get any great angle of the bee since the plants we're to tall and I was just trying to get closer to the bee (i was on a sidewalk). Thanks, Mulgabill! I haven't heard so much from you. How're things going these days? :D

Permalink Reply by Ernest Tay on September 29, 2009 at 12:35pm

Hi Maeda, I am sorry to tell you...this ain't a bee...take a closer look at it...u will know what i meant...hehehe...anyway a nice shot...however, probably you may wish to pay some attention to the blur back ground...cause i find a little distracting on the right side in view of the different in colour in comparsion between the greens and its colour. This is just my personal preference. Basically a good shot you've got there....

Permalink Reply by Ian Clark on December 3, 2009 at 2:07pm

Maeda we dont criticize, we hope to help.

You need to compose differently. Your bug is aimed out of the left hand side of the photo, like photographing people they should be looking into the space if your going to crop with a large open area. If your bug was going to fly off it would go out to the left so you might want to crop off your open area and just keep a tight space around the bug.

Also like photographing people and animals the eyes are important. You need to get the bugs eyes in focus. How many photos of people behinds do you see?

Your colours are great, nice dark background and contrasting flower and bug. You might need to lift your shutter speed there is a little blur around the edges. More speed will give better clarity.

cheers, hope this helps.

Permalink Reply by legleg.pedroche on December 21, 2009 at 10:15pm

Hello Sirs! Im a first timer here, would like to ask wot are the settings for this kind of photo? i would to try it but dont know the settings.

My camera is Nikon D5000 and a kit lens

Thnx in advance :) Merry Christmas!

Permalink Reply by Maeda on December 25, 2009 at 7:33pm

What I do is, I always set the ISO at its lowest setting (depending whether sunlight is bright). Usually it would be at 200 to 400. Then, I would adjust the White Balance and the picture style. If I shoot flowers as my main subject, I switch my picture style to Vivid. It's always up to you... you can always experiment especially with the aperture and shutter speed.

Merry Christmas! :)

Permalink Reply by legleg.pedroche on December 27, 2009 at 11:01pm

Thnx alot Sir :)

Happy Holidays!

Permalink Reply by Bart Cummins on December 23, 2009 at 7:08pm

maeda,
for a first attempt — it's great.
interesting looking bug.

as for being too far away? a tighter crop would help and a bit of sharpening. the white petals are distracting, but as was mentioned, you should be able to lessen the impact through a photo editing program.

advice — continue to shoot & xplore different ways to capture the same subject (shutter, ISO, aperture, angles, white balance, motion, different photo buddies, subject placement in the frame, etc).
of course, there will be a lot of crappy shots, but through the process, you'll create great-looking shots as well as well as stumbling upon some inspiring discoveries. :-]

bart

Permalink Reply by Bob Barnes on April 27, 2010 at 8:00am

Maeda, It looks a bit on the soft side. I see the antenna of the bee is doubled like to slow a shutter speed. I know tripods are a pain in the rear but they really help sharpen images.