Horse Fly Portrait

Male Horse fly (Tabanus sp.). Clicked this to particularly show the compound eyes.

Compound eyes are composed of several thousand individual lenses called "facets". They provide a very wide field of vision and enable the animal to detect fast movements and, in some cases, polarisation of light.
[Note: An easy way to tell male horse flies from females is by looking at the eyes. A male's eyes touch each other, while females have a wide space between the eyes. Female horse flies are to be treated with caution as they feed on blood and have a very painful bite.]

Not sure whether you will agree with this composition. I accidentally got one of the legs touching the bottom of the frame, so thought of cropping to make the entire frame tighter (since the eyes are the main subject here, not the body or the habitat). Let me know what you think about the composition.

Canon 500D, Canon 100mm Macro USM
Aperture-Priority AE
Tv 1/80
Av 5.6 (for a shallow DoF to draw attention to the eyes)
EC -2/3
ISO 1600
Flash Off
Hand held

Thanks, comments and critique awaited.

Excellent. Remember reading a lot on compound eyes in school days. Nice perspective and the eyes have come out really well. smooth BG.May be a little less space at the top .How wud a head on central composition look on this with eyes covering rest of the body???

TFS
Roopak

Thanks Roopak. Agree about the central head-on composition... but couldn't find a steady enough position to shoot from that angle. Could have tried it if I had a higher shutter speed. As for having less space at the top- I think that will give the image a more square look. However, I'll try it. Thanks for the suggestion.

I think slightly more space at bottom and right would strengthen this composition. I like this image. I think you should try using a tripod as the shutter speeds are invariably less. Thanks for sharing.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

Thanks for the suggestions Sabyasachi. My current tripod does not allow for small adjustments, and is not very suitable for macro work. But I agree with your suggestion, I should try using it till I can get a better one.

The details are good. The plain green background enhances the image further. I am fine with the present composition. Did you try a horizontal framing as that would have added more space to the right and bottom. Thanks for sharing the detailed information. Look forward to more.

Classic shot Abhishek. TFS.
Congrats for your 100mm