Beautiful Demoiselle + repost

(Calopteryx virgo) female I think, but feel free to correct me!

I braved the sun and the hay fever on Monday morning, but it paid off with a very enjoyable macro day.

Specs: Canon 7D, EF100mm f/2.8L IS macro USM lens, Canon 430EX II flashgun mounted on a Novoflex flash griff bracket, Canon remote flash cable, Apollo diffuser, Canon angle view finder. ISO 400, f/16, 1/200th sec, fullframe. Imported with ACR and processed in CS6.

I've been giving CS6 a trial and I'm very impressed so far, except I found that the dark colour scheme obscures the curves grid. Easily fixed though by switching to a lighter colour scheme.

Thanks for looking, c's and c's welcome as always.

Paul,

I do believe your ID to be correct, the differences in the females of c. virgo and c. splendens is very subtle and is generally just the wing colour... virgo being more brown and splendens more green, The males are easy...

A nice image, for my taste it is lit too much by the flash.... its never easy but it appears that you weren't quite lined up with the body and the insect appears to be facing slightly away...

I agree with the ID Paul. I like this image, but think it would work better if rotated to landscape (or at least it seems to when I tilt my head! ). It does look like the lens wasn't quite parallel to the body but I know this can be tricky. The light looks reasonably OK to me, maybe a little harsh, but the black background is the obvious give away that flash was used. On dragons and damsels I personally prefer natural light or maybe just a little fill flash.

Matt

I think I would prefer less of that leaf and more BG but it is personal taste. Nice detailed shot though.

Thanks for the comments everyone. With hindsight I overdid the processing on this one. I originally took this in landscape format as Matt spotted, but thought it would look better rotated... I've attached the original image, the black background was me trying to eliminate the busy BG. But it just made it look false and the lighting strange. Hey, ho. Back to learning processing I go! This macro lark is hard work, I was up at the crack of dawn, but by the time I came across these it was already warm and they then proceeded to give me the runaround! I intended to use the printed lawn BG technique, but alas it was not to be.

Hi Paul,

Personally I much prefer the second, full frame image as it is how I usually see them.

David

I prefer the repost Paul. As you know, the trick it to catch them when they're still cold and then they might let you bend or move their perch a little to get a clearer background. Of course, the problem is finding them when they're cold...

Matt

I too prefer the repost... Demoiselles are very much more aware of things within their comfort zone which can make them the hardest and most frustrating of the damselflies to photograph... early morning when they are still cold and haven't built up the reserves to fly or evening when they are about to roost... of course the problem is finding them when they are roosting... if you do they are very accommodating...

Printed lawn eh... try and get a bit of variation in tone...

Phil

Second looks good to me.

JR

2nd is the winner.

Hi Paul.
The second looks like a fine piece of work to me.

Keith.