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Hover fly & Bee Balm
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Hover fly & Bee Balm

by John Tobias

Gallery: Macro & Close-upPosted July 25, 201396 views3 comments
Was photographing flowers on the prairie in Central Illinois when this kindly hoverfly landed on the Bee Balm right in front of my camera. Decided to try a pano crop to keep as much of the flower in the image as possible. Will be interested in comments regarding how well this composition works.

Canon SL1
1/200 @ F-6.3 ISO 100
Canon EF-100mm 2.8 Macro USM
tripod

Comments

3 comments
Comment posted by Barb Pflaum on July 25, 2013 at 8:43 PM
Very cool image, John! I like the way the fly is hanging on to the end of the flower. I think the pano crop works well to show the flower and the fly's size and position in relation to the flower.
Registered on January 14, 2009, 316 Posts, 2724 Comments
Comment posted by scott lanz on July 25, 2013 at 10:36 PM
John, I'm not sure I understand your comment about using a pano crop to show as much of the flower as possible. If this was cropped from the bottom, I assume even more of the flower was visible in the original, and if cropped from the top, I assume there wasn't much more flower in the original. I am guessing that you wanted to crop some of the image to increase the size ratio of the hover, so you used a pano rather than cropping from the right so as to maintain more of the flower center in the image? In any event, this comp works fine for me. The HF is in good position 1/3 in from the left edge and facing in, and you also kept the center of the flower in the image. I also like the nice bg and good detail in the HF.
Registered on November 14, 2003, 840 Posts, 12902 Comments
Comment posted by Philip Hodgkins on July 26, 2013 at 8:13 PM
A lucid explanation from Scott pretty well covers the ground. I'm not much on the pano crop here, but it managed what you wanted from it. Well thought out processing!
Registered on July 24, 2006, 2741 Posts, 12349 Comments