Eastern Tiger Swallowtail - Female

[Marina Scarr]

Photographed some butterflies at the Chassahowitzka Wildlife Management Area a few weeks ago. Set up the long lens near some thistle the butterflies appeared to like and waited for them to land. This technique seemed to work better than chasing them around with a short lens, although it was also a difficult shoot in terms of lighting, backgrounds, etc. Climbing the macro photography learning curve has been fun, and the critiques and comments from this forum have been very helpful.

Canon 1D4, Canon 500L
F8, 1/1000sec, ISO 640, manual mode
Feisol tripod, Jobu head

C & C always welcomed and much appreciated.

Marina Scarr
Florida Master Naturalist
www.marinascarrphotography.com (http://www.marinascarrphotography.com)


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[Satish Ranadive]

Marina:
I know very little about macro.
This is absolutely superb image of beautiful butterfly.Lovely colors and superb details.Nice color scheme.
I like the composition too.The OOF green branches in LCC suits for the composition.

Regards,
Satish.

[bhavya joshi]

Excellent Exposure Of Colorful Butterfly.. wings patterns looks beautiful.. I was thinking How the Image Looks without OOF branches,. Thanks For sharing.

[Clyde Hopper]

Hi Marina ,
With butterflies ,I feel ,you have to decide ,Macro (Where you see all the fine hairs ) or close-up (Where the fine details don't distract from the whole story ) .On this photograph the complete story is easily read . The out of focus plants give clues to a number factors . They also give me something to judge how large the Swallowtail is .
The butterfly It self is nicely placed in the frame ,and the food source is clear ,so one would know where to find a second opportunity . (Can you tell I really like the photo ?)
Now if I was to question any part of the photograph ,It would be ,if the thistle stem should be that far oof ? with the flower that sharp ,I would have expected the stem to be almost as sharp . I very well may be way off base here ,(My questioning ,of myself ,says your post is good ,or the stem is as shot ) but it just feels a tad off ?

[Jonathan Ashton]

Hey Marina the tripod and the 500 make for a great macro combo!! the butterfly is almost perfect for DOF, colours gorgeous and I do like the OOF leaves on the left. I know we can,t always have everything but the thing holding the image back for me is the partially hidden thistle flower, i would like to have seen none or much more of it, but that is one fine image.
(I don't know if you have extension tubes but they work well with the 500 for macro)

[Ken Childs]

Marina, the butterfly and the flower couldn't look any better....sharpness and DOF are perfect! It sounds like I'm in the minority but the OOF branches are bothering me. If this were mine I would blur them away. The comp looks great as is but I'm always one to go in tighter so I think I would prefer this with a fair amount cropped from the left and right and a sliver taken from the top. Whatever you decide, the core image is fantastic and of course the crop is very subjective.

[Jeannean Ryman]

Very nice image Marina. The OOF leaves don't bother me, but the thistle flower does. With a macro lens at f/8, it would be more OOF than it is, so I would prefer to see it more OOF. (providing more separation from the main subject) Very good timing to get the wingspread on these if they were in their active stage!

[Steve Maxson]

Hi Marina. Very nice use of the 500 mm "macro." I like the diagonal of the stem and you have excellent overall sharpness on your subject. The butterfly looks to be a nearly perfect specimen. Up here, I'm used to seeing this species with brighter yellows (maybe it's just a regional difference - or you might consider increasing the yellow saturation a few points?). The comp works, as presented, though I think this would also look very good as a vertical. This is very well done!

[Adrian David]

Superb butterfly in excellent condition! Not an easy task to "capture" these species....You need much patience and attention to get them in a good position, to take the shot...

[Jerry van Dijk]

Excellent image, Marina. Good comments already given. My preference would be to slightly brighten the image and crop it as a vertical. I love the nice BG the 500 created. The long telephoto lenses are as suitable as (if not better than) macrolenses for butterflies in my experience for all the reasons you mention.

[Cheryl Arena Molennor]

I love the comp and the diagonal stem.I really like the oof leaves bottom right. For some reason the colors look off to me and I thought it right from the thumbnail. They don't appear as bright and clean as usual almost look dirty or have a funky cast but I cant pin point it. It reminds me of when I forget to convert the profile for web. Your dof looks perfect