Another of those dragonfly/damselfly photos

[ravishankar]

I photographed this at night when this decided to make a dried out branch of a potted plant it's resting place. I felt it was good but after I shoot a picture like this, there is always a nagging feeling that I have not done everything right. Please critique this and let me know what all is wrong with this photograph. I'm sure all the critiques and comments will help in making me a better photographer. I'm passionate about macro photography and want to take some very good photographs. This is an effort towards possibly achieving my objective.

The EXIF is

D90
VR 105mm/2.8G
1/80s
F/16
Flash : Yes


Thanks for looking.


Ravi

[T.R.R]

As I sit here looking at the picture, two things kind of jump out at me. 1) It sits to dead center of the image, this kind of take away from it in my opinion. 2) The colors are really flat, with no luster to them, I think a little more pop would make a big diffrence.

[Thunder_o_b]

Me, I like the crop. In close-ups/macro the rule of thirds plays much less of a role.

The shot is a bit flat and one-sided with the lighting, but you can get that with a single flash of an object suspended in space. The way around this it to use a twin head flash (expensive), or a white card (cheep) to reflect the flash back to the dark side of the subject. You can very the color of the card to tint the light to get the warmth you want.

Also this has the look of a hot shoe mounted flash, using a bracket would help a bit as well. This is the one that I use.
Delta 1 Flip Flash I Bracket - 7" Flash Arm

[sourav]

I am a bit confused here.
The dragon fly was resting, implies the wings were stable.
Shutter is 1/80 which is quite fast and would avoid camera shake
Your aperture is f/16 which implies even if you were a meter away, there is no way the wings would be out of focus.
Now, either you were very near to the fly, or the fly was real big.
So which one was it?

[ravishankar]

Thank you T,R,R, Thunder and Sourav for your comments.

I did use a hot shoe flash and now I realise that there was a better way of using it. When I do it next time in similar circumstances, I will certainly try and use a bracket/reflector to see if I can improve the way I light my subject.

Sourav, the fly was small but I was very near the fly. I tried F/16 for better focus of the fly and now realise that I have actually achieved the reverse of it. Thank you for having pointed this out. I will certainly be more careful next time around,

Thank you all for your time.

Ravi

[crockny]

As a dragonfly photographer myself, I love this! The composition is great and sometimes with bugs or birds dead center is the only way to go ... my only complaint is the whole thing isn't sharp ...

[ravishankar]

Originally Posted by crockny

As a dragonfly photographer myself, I love this! The composition is great and sometimes with bugs or birds dead center is the only way to go ... my only complaint is the whole thing isn't sharp ...

Thanks for looking at my photograph. I was pleasently surprised to see a response after a long time. I have been trying to find another one of those opportunities to try and get a sharper, better picture but have not been able to find one.

Hope to find one that stays for a while for me to frame a better picture.