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Balance
Balance
freakin_hilarious


Photograph Information Photographer's Comments
Challenge: Free Study 2008-07 (Advanced Editing VII)
Camera: Canon EOS-400D Rebel XTi
Lens: Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 USM Macro
Location: Albuquerque, NM
Date: Jul 14, 2008
Aperture: f/7.1
ISO: 100
Shutter: 1/200 sec
Galleries: Nature, Macro
Date Uploaded: Jul 15, 2008

 My dad found this little guy (he is about 1 inch long) in his backyard a few weeks ago and took some pictures. The last time I was over there we looked but couldn't find him again. Just a couple of days ago my dad spotted him and put him in a jar just so I could take a few pics.

I cut a red rose from our bush and set it on a little table outside (away from the cats). I got the tripod, camera, and AB400 (shooting through a white umbrella) all set up. I then carefully placed the mantis on the rose and started shooting. This was the best of about 30 shots.

Shot in RAW: adjusted white balance and exposure, exported to a 16 bit tiff, tone mapped in Photomatix (for some reason I really like the look of tone mapped red roses)

PS:
NI
Crop
Curves
Hue/Sat
Dodge/burn all over the place
Some selective saturation on the mantis
A bit of cloning here and there
A bit of vignetting
Resize
USM
Save for web

Statistics
Place: 95 out of 524
Avg (all users): 6.1709
Avg (commenters): 7.0000
Avg (participants): 6.1092
Avg (non-participants): 6.3590
Views since voting: 824
Views during voting: 246
Votes: 158
Comments: 8
Favorites: 0

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AuthorThread
 Comments Made During the Challenge
08/07/2008 05:29:21 PM
Very nice composition and mix match of color. The mantis looks nice against the red rose. Only the lighting seems a bit too harsh.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 08/06/2008 04:55:04 AM
Beautiful colours, I like the contrast or the red and green.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 08/06/2008 03:45:57 AM
wow...hope this does well for you, the red makes this really POP!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 08/04/2008 11:57:21 PM
We see lots of bug on flower shots. But I'm not yawning at this one! Great colours, sharp focus, good pose (model must be a pro)... nice.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 08/04/2008 01:49:50 PM
It's just a little over-exposed.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 08/04/2008 12:19:41 PM
The back end may be a bit "hot" but the detail of the foreground and the velvety goodness of those petals, combiend with the outstanding red/green contrast all make up for that hot spot.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 08/02/2008 07:14:23 AM
Simply awesome capture, the red flower really set off the mantis, the detail is fantastic.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 08/01/2008 05:01:05 AM
Nice capture. Would be nice to reduce the brightness on the abdomen.
  Photographer found comment helpful.


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