Outdoor Ontario
Photography => Nature => Topic started by: Ed O'Connor on December 20, 2020, 05:43:00 PM
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Here's a photo of a female Black-legged Meadow Katydid that I saw in Tommy Thompson Park last October. It would be easy to get addicted to these things.
(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50489093712_31e1b14ab8_c.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/2jVxNxJ)Black-legged Meadow Katydid (https://flic.kr/p/2jVxNxJ) by Edward O'Connor (https://www.flickr.com/photos/152894743@N08/), on Flickr
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Love the details and colors. Great capture!
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This is one of those rare shots where some old-fashion gear might help, although a similar result could be achieved with software. The colours are terrific, especially due to their pastel quality, but the exposure is bright enough to subdue the chromatic palette. A darker exposure would bring out the colour more profoundly and also lessen the blow-out of the blooms. I fear than control of those highlights might be too much and bypass that sweet spot for best colour. A graduated Cokin filter inserted upside down would reduce the exposure of the blooms, eliminating the highlight blow-out and allowing a slight decrease in exposure to punch the colours of this fantastic insect. Man, when I think of the stuff we used to do to control an exposure that seems so quaint in a digital world. Nice photo though and a good subject for some PS enhancement, especially if this shot ends up in an entomologist’s magazine centerfold. That's a thing ... isn't it?
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Thanks, Charline--I'm glad you enjoyed it.
Shortsighted--I know what you mean--the brightness of the goldenrod plume sort of overwhelms the combination of colors in the katydid. I may go back and look at reducing the light intensity in iPhoto and see if that improves the overall balance. But as you say, sometimes doing that also reduces the color intensity in the "bulls-eye" part of the photo that you want to emphasize. As they used to say in the Middle Ages, Art is long, and life is short.
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Same shot with PS
(https://photos.smugmug.com/photos/i-SpHx6Sv/0/1f29bc68/L/i-SpHx6Sv-L.jpg) (https://www.smugmug.com/gallery/n-358cgw/i-SpHx6Sv/A)
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This is the somewhat lighter version
(https://photos.smugmug.com/photos/i-HjpNq9g/0/49b7020b/L/i-HjpNq9g-L.jpg) (https://www.smugmug.com/gallery/n-358cgw/i-HjpNq9g/A)
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I definitely like the lighter version better. I fooled around with the photo a bit in iPhoto and cropped out some of the goldenrod tuft to put the focus more squarely on the bug itself. There are any number of things you can do.
(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50753959328_9d7445afb1_c.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/2kjXiSh)Katydid 02 (https://flic.kr/p/2kjXiSh) by Edward O'Connor (https://www.flickr.com/photos/152894743@N08/), on Flickr