Common morpho and drops

[Randy Stout]

Several times in the late winter I try to make it up to our local butterfly conservatory, Meijers Gardens, in Grand Rapids, MI. I was fortunate to make a trip yesterday with Gary Esman and Roy Van Loo. We had a great time. No tripods allowed, so all hand held, which can be a challenge as you lean in to get a nice composition, and can't properly brace yourself because of the ropes and other restrictions. Still, a lovely place.

D4 Sigma 180 f/3.5 f/22 1/200s ISO 800 Nikon R1C1 for light (two heads used)

Post: Crop for comp, toned down some highlights, selective sharpening

I liked the water drops, diagonal lines of the leaf, and of course, that glorious blue color.

Advice and comments always appreciated. My macro skills are nascent at best, but I like the new challenges!

Cheers

Randy

[Steve Maxson]

Hi Randy. Congratulations on getting a shot of a morpho with its wings spread - and a nice specimen too! I've been in a number of butterfly gardens and have seen these in the wild also - and have yet to get a shot as they seem to always fold up their wings as soon as they land. This image gives the impression of a ray of sunlight striking the leaf in an otherwise dark rainforest. Nice comp, good sharpness, and the water drops add interest. If this was mine, I'd probably clone a lot of the flash-generated spectral highlights in the water drops - but that's a matter of taste - and would be a lot of work. This is very nicely done and I hope you have more butterfly images to share!

[Dave Leroy]

Lovely color on the butterfly and nicely exposed as well. I am surprised there are not really bright specular highlights from the flash. I like the brightness of the b'fly but could see the leaf a bit brighter. The composition is fine but I just have an urge to rotate the image so butterfly is also on a diagonal.
Very nice.

[Randy Stout]

Thanks guys:

I appreciate your input. I had pondered the specular highlights in the drops, and might go back and clean up a few of the larger ones, esp right in front of the head.

Dave - re: crop/comp. This image was rotated a bit CCW from the original so that the diagonal came out of the right upper corner and swept across the frame as posted. I could do a version so the butterfly is more diagonal and see if the overall balance still works.

Again, appreciate your thoughts!

Cheers

Randy

[Randy Stout]

Here is a slight tweak using your ideas to refine it a bit. Modest rotation to make the butterfly a bit more diagonal, and cleaned up a few of the larger specular highlights.

Didn't resize after work, but if you feel its an improvement, will start over again and incorporate the changes in the file.

[Gary Esman]

Randy, glad you got a nice shot of one of these. The light is showing those gorgeous wings nicely. I like the comp., sharpness and water droplets had a lot here. Great HA also!:bg3:
I would only remove one of the reflections off each water droplets, looks more natural to me. Just my own opinion.

Gary.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Randy, I try not to look at comments before I post mine but I have obviously seen two images. The first image looks very good in terms of exposure and there is plenty of quality there. The repost is still very high quality and the eye is more concentrated on the beautiful butterfly and my eyes tend not to roam around so much. The dark background looks credible and acceptable to me I don't know of these butterflies live in forests or not (?) I see in the top corner especially you have got some hint of green foliage there and I think this helps, maybe something similar for the bottom corner? Coming back to the butterfly, I think it is spot on, the DOF is super and the colours and detail are excellent.

[Dave Leroy]

Well done on the repost Randy. The bit of cropping required got us a bit closer to the butterfly and cleaning up some of the specular highlights also creates a smoother looking image.