California Newt

I like the colors and the eyes as well as the texture of the moss. I'm a little curious about this being shot @ f/22. Shouldn't the whole body of the newt be in focus with such a small aperture?

It belongs in the macro forum, but I don't mind seeing it here.

Nice shot. I agree that a little bit more space on the right would have been better. Overall, the shot feels a tiny bit underexposed and it could use some extra sharpening.

Luke - shooting with a macro lens, especially when you're close to your subject, gives an incredible shallow dof. f/22 may seem like a lot, but in the macro world it's not.

Hi Clinton,

No problem with this staying in Fauna - looks to me like it's a member of the non-feathered world of animals (and simply shooting it with a macro lens is not reason enough to move it).

From a critique perspective I have to more or less echo what Marsel said (thanks Marsel). I'm with you in wanting to see a bit more space on the right - tho' I think I would go one step further and argue the entire image here is slightly too tight (at least for my taste) and makes it tough to do too much compositionally. But this is obviously a personal preference thing and definitely NOT an issue of right/wrong...

Cheers...thanks for sharing this...

Brad

Very interesting photo. Good color and composition.

Clinton, the fact that you rescued two of these creatures sure makes up for the little 'handling' you did to create this set-up. Thank you also for being honest about how you created the image. I quite like the image and agree with your self critique about the space to the right.

Like Brad I am fine with seeing this in Fauna, but it could just have well been posted in Macro.

I would like to address Luke's good question here

I'm a little curious about this being shot @ f/22. Shouldn't the whole body of the newt be in focus with such a small aperture?

With a macro lens this is certainly not possible Luke, at least not with the body in the direction away from the camera. Once you have your macro lens, you will see!
That is why the big challenge with Macro photography is DOF!!! Canon has resently released a 100/2.8 with the latest renewed generation of IS and it immediately earned a high place on my wish list. IS (or VR) is probably most important in macro lenses above all others.

You learn something new everyday! I guess I sort of knew that was the case... but the angle of the body threw me for a loop. Typically, macro shots on this site are flowers/dragonflies, and are often times side profiles where an extremely limited DOF is all that's needed so I didn't think about the requirements of such a 'deep' shot.

- Luke

Hmm. "It's underexposed a bit" is a comment I get fairly often. Left to my own devices I will frequently post images that are too dark. I'm not quite sure why this is as I usually agree with the view (including in this case) that it could be brighter and don't seem to be learning the lesson.

One thing I think I get fooled by in the field is the image in the LCD on the camera. Even with the brightness turned down all the way images often look brighter there than after processing. I used to have an issue as a Mac user where I was using a screen with a gamma of 1.8 rather than 2.2 (meaning the images would look darker on a PC than on my Mac). These days I'm using a gamma of 2.2 so I don't have that excuse.

Regarding sharpening - I'll play with it a bit. A problem I have a lot with fish and sometimes with other animals is that the eyes of some animals seem inherently unsharp (it doesn't help that they don't have eyelashes). There isn't anything at the eye that looks sharp even if the focus is in the right place. If I'm off on this one it isn't by much. Even a lot of sharpening doesn't fix it. Seems to depend a bit on the angle too. Sometimes you get a nice edge at the rim of the iris. Other times it's hard not to look at the softness of the cornea/eyeball itself. Not sure what to do about that.

Thanks for the comments.

Clinton, interesting comment you make about difficulty in getting a sharp looking eye in fish and other lashless/lidless. I, too, would have said the eye is slightly soft, but upon re-examination I feel that the highlights immediately to the right of the eye are in the focal plane. Hmmm. Maybe if you added some selective contrast to just the eye? I think if the front leg had been in equal focus to the nose and eye, everything would have felt sharper. On other notes, I like the rich colors and the clean setting. I, too, think the image might be slightly dark for best viewing, but not by much.

I love this. More room on the right would be nice but still great without. I like somewhat darker images so that I find this just right tells you it is probably too dark.