Judge –
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- Weta – Acceptance This image has captured the insect very well. Nice and large in the frame. The left antenna is going off the edge of the frame at the right but that’s not bothering me. What is a concern for me is the darkness underneath the belly of the weta, and I think you needed to open up the shadows in order to give us some more detail. You’ve managed to get good sharpness across the image, and I’ve awarded this acceptance
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- Cicada Case – Not accepted You’ve presented this large in the frame, and I think that’s served you well. Issues I have with this image are that it’s been sharpened with some kind of AI tool which has given a an unacceptable smoothness in the smooth areas and unexpected crispness in the hairs. And I think that that’s problematic. You’ve also got burnout on the shoulders and the top of the eye part of the casing. I’m not particularly liking that this has not been photographed in its natural environment. You’ve put it on some kind of man-made surface, and that’s not really acceptable in my book. You’ve done a good job with depth of field on this image, though.
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- Frontal exposure – Not accepted I have a number of issues with this. I’m not particularly keen on cute titles like frontal exposure. You haven’t really made any effort to tell us what this species is. It’s being photographed on an unnatural background and when you have a look at the quality of the image, the smooth surfaces look quite posturized. So this has been photographed with some kind of low resolution sensor, I think, and it’s not giving a very good effect here. You have got the image sharp, though and the lighting is generally quite good.
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- Just another stick in the forest – Merit It’s not usual in a nature competition, particularly a Psnz competition to desaturate part of the image, as has been done here but I see that your club is also not observing a number of other Issues with regard to nature photography under Psnz rules. So I will accept this. But you certainly need to understand this would not be accepted in a Psnz nature competition, because of the desaturation effect. It would be nice, too, if you had attempted to name this stick insect and you haven’t done that. But at the Psnz level for a nature competition that would be required I think it would have been helpful if you could have got in a little bit closer, because the insect in the frame is quite small relative to the screen real estate that we’ve got and that’s something you could attempt to do in any future endeavours. The image itself, though the stick insect is quite interesting in its colour, and it’s nicely sharp.
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- Resting Monarch – Highly commended You’ve done a good job here of showing the monarch large in the frame, the antennae, complete and sharp. We’re just getting a little bit of brightness here, and the image is a tad overexposed. We’re not burning out, but some of the white patches on the wings are burning out a little, so a little less exposure would have helped. But I like your sharpness and your composition in the frame.
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- Bumblebee – Merit This is nicely captured. I like that the wings are crisp and clean and sharp, and the head and abdomen are also – or is it thorax? – are nicely sharp. So that’s good. We’re just a bit bright in places here, and I think this image deserves a really good reduction in highlights, just to show more detail in the shoulder area and reduce the brightness of the white margins of the flowers that the insect is on.
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- Strike a pose – Highly commended Another cute title, and won’t suit you well in a natural history competition, You’ve made no attempt to identify this butterfly, which is a shame, but you’ve made a very nice job of photographing it. I would love to have seen the wings open so we could see more of the detail in the wings that would have helped with identification. But I think you’ve got enough here to identify the butterfly with. Nice composition. Not sure you need quite all of the spare space at the top and the right. You could probably do with a bit of a crop to make the butterfly larger in the frame.
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- Weta – Acceptance I think this is another tree weta and this has been nicely captured. Lovely, sharp detail on the legs, although from the exposure has been a little bit tight on depth of field because we’ve got the head sharp, but The 1st and 3rd legs are losing sharpness, and the tail of the insect is losing sharpness as well, so could have done with a better depth of field. Also, the blacks are so richly black that we’re losing detail, particularly under the head of the insect.
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- Bee my guest – Merit This is another cute title instead of a nature title. No deduction from my end for that. But I’m alerting you to the fact that it’s not a nature title. I think The bee itself has been nicely captured. A shame that the left wing is not really visible. Maybe it was in motion, and that was the problem. You’re also a little bit rich on the contrast here, and I think that, easing the contrast in this image and pulling the highlights back a bit, would really help.
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- Nature’s tiny acrobat – Acceptance And yet another cute title. There are a number of issues for me with this image. 1st of all, you’ve desaturated the background and reduced saturation in the flower, which is not very nature friendly. Secondly, the insect that you’re capturing here is really not sharp. It is in the abdomen, but not in the head area, and I think that it’s taking up too small a proportion of the image. So you needed to get in closer and concentrate on your depth of field to make the insect as sharp as it could be. Lovely sharpness in the flower. But that’s not really what you intended I think. and I’ve given this one an acceptance
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- Paper wasp – Acceptance This is an interesting capture of the paper wasp. The real issue here is in the quality of the image itself. It looks to have been taken with a very low resolution processor, or else it was such a small part of the frame that when you cropped it in, you didn’t really have a lot of data to deal with. You’ve then sharpened it, and we’ve got this smoothness without texture and all the areas of common colour, and that’s not really very natural. Unfortunately. Otherwise the image itself has been nicely captured. The wasp is a reasonable size in the frame.
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- Western honeybee – Highly commended This is much better as the bees go. I like the sharpness in the eyes and the head, and we do have one set of wings on the left hand side, nicely sharp. All the legs are sharp, just the thorax is a little bit blurry. The abdomen is just a little bit soft in the tail end but that’s fine. I like that. You’ve captured another insect also in this image some sort of ant. I wish that you had included none of the trumpet of the flower, or all of the end of the flower, probably all of it would have been better. It just feels unhappily cropped at the moment. Because I like the way that you’ve captured the bee I’ve awarded this a highly commended.
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- Cicada – Highly commended I’ve not seen any cicada in New Zealand that looks like this. So telling us where it’s from would be really helpful. The image itself is very highly Saturated. And it’s also strongly towards the yellow end of the spectrum. My solution take the yellow toning in the temperature of the image down a tiny bit towards the blue, pull back on the contrast and open up the shadows a little, and if you do those things all not too heavily, you’ll end up with an image where the insect stands out a great deal more against the background. But a nice capture, a really interesting insect.
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- Monarch – Honours This is a really nicely made image, lovely light, very sharp throughout, and a diffuse background that doesn’t interfere with our view and enjoyment of the butterfly itself. And this is a lovely representation of this monarch And I’ve given this one an honours
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- Tiny butterfly – Highly commended My thoughts here are that this is a beautiful image of this tiny butterfly. I would really like for you to try and find out what it is, and name it properly. That would be really helpful The flower itself is a really strong colour in the image that’s unfortunately out of focus and that is really the degrading part of the image, because the butterfly itself is really beautifully handled. I’ve not been able to give this an honours because of the flower itself.
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- An aphid’s journey – Not accepted Given that this is a nature competition, and we’re really supposed to be looking at the aphid I think the view you have given us is so minuscule as to be somewhat ridiculous. Unfortunately we really can’t see the aphid to any sensible degree. It’s reasonably sharp but really this was about an insect, not about the flower, and I think you’ve missed the mark here.
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- Going solo, a processionary caterpillar of Tasmania – Accepted This is an interesting caterpillar, but it’s just unfortunate that your depth of field was so shallow that even though you’re partially in focus on that caterpillar which is a tiny part of the depth of field in your frame, you’ve missed the sharpness on the head and on the rear end of this animal. I think that otherwise it’s an interesting subject. It’s well exposed, and where it is sharp it’s nicely sharp. I think you needed to be closer in with a better depth of field.
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- Greengrocer cicada Cyclochila australasiae – Merit This image has good potential, but unfortunately there are so many bright spots in the image that it really distracts. You needed to tone down all the bright bits, particularly the grasses around the cicada in order to try and improve the quality of the image. It’s interesting, though, and by and large it’s sharp throughout. It’s just this exposure in the highlights issue that you’re trying to deal with here. I think it’s an interesting image and you do have front to back sharpness so well done for that.
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- Orthorinus, cylindry, rostrus. Wire walking elephant weevil – Merit This is an interesting subject. You can see that it’s a weevil. So that’s good. Unfortunately there are appendages that are in motion, and quite strongly out of focus, and the weevil itself is not very large in the frame so we don’t really get much of a decent look at the weevil itself. I would like it to be bigger in the frame. And I would like your depth of field/shutter speed to have captured it more sharply and shown us more.
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- Clipper, Butterfly, Parthenos, Sylvia – Honours This is a beautifully taken image. It’s crisply sharp, and the butterfly is easily able to be seen. Just watch those highlights, and also the bottom half of the image below. The butterfly is not really telling us a lot You could quite usefully crop a good 3rd of the image off at the bottom, and not really lose anything except some out of focus leaves And I would tone down the highlights in the background of this one. But it is a very nicely made image of this butterfly.
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- Dragonfly – Merit At 1st glance it is very nicely sharp. But it’s also suffering from being a low res image that’s been sharpened with an AI sharpening tool. We’ve got smoothing – what I would call posterization – in places, and the long tail of its body is showing grey where it was probably overexposed. We also have haloing around the lower portion of the insect, and that’s unfortunate. There’s nothing wrong with using monochrome if you present the image entirely in monochrome. In fact, in the days of pre colour all images were monochrome. So I don’t have a problem with an image being purely monochrome. But I do have a problem with the quality of this image.
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- Cicada – Acceptance I’m not sure what fruit stem this is that the cicada is on. Its wings are kind of battered at the end, but by and large it’s reasonably, crisply sharp, except on the eyes. And unfortunately, that’s where we get the sense of connection with the insect, and for that not to be sharp is a little bit problematic. I do like the diffuse background, and that you’ve shown us the cicada large in the frame, and I have awarded this one an acceptance.
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- Paper wasps – Honours This is a nicely captured image of these wasps at work making their nest. We can see some cells already closed over, and others in the process and the insects themselves are nice and crisply sharp as is the leading front edge of the hive itself. It’s got nice colour harmony as well, and the insects themselves are nicely balanced within the frame. I like that. We’ve got 2 sort of one near the centre and one slightly off that sort of feels nicely presented to me, and I’m happy to give this one honours.
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- Praying Mantis – Honours This is an unusual image in the sense that the head and neck and front legs are nice and crisply sharp but the abdomen and the rear legs are not. In this case I don’t mind that as the antennae are sharp. I love the curl of the leaf in front, and the nice diffuse orange of the background overall, and I think it’s a lovely composition, and while perhaps not quite as useful as a natural history image, it’s still a good nature image.
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- Emerald swallowtail butterfly – Honours This is very nicely captured. I love the detail in the wings, and the butterfly itself is crisply sharp I think the flowers themselves are just bordering on being overexposed, particularly near the top, but there is colour and detail in there, I think just a tiny lift in the in the shadows, and a slight reduction in highlights would improve the image. But really it’s a lovely image as it stands.
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- Enjoying the sun – Accepted This image of a fly has a number of issues. Unfortunately, the brightness of the white flowers, which occupy more than half of the frame is dominating the image and the sensor resolution that you’ve shot this with is very poor and either that or you’ve cropped it out of a larger frame. And you really didn’t have a lot of pixels that you were trying to represent this fly with And so we’re really not getting very good detail on the fly at all, and we are also getting some smoothing through the sharpening process you’ve used. I think I might be wrong about that. In this particular case. And It’s got the elements for a good image. But the quality of the image is not strong compositionally, I think you could lose half the space below the fly, and just put more emphasis on the fly itself. Other than that. I think you really needed the fly to be bigger in the frame, and that would have given you more detail to play with.
