A sign of Spring!

[Gary Esman]

Hello, thought I would post one of my butterfly images from yesterday with Randy Stout and Roy Van Loo. A nice sign of Spring every year when the Meijer Gardens host the Butterflies are Blooming. Not shooting macro a whole lot it is a different challenge whenever I attempt it. I thought I was shooting at f/13 but apparently not :w3. Anyways, I hope you like it and let me know what you think. Self critique for next time - need a little more DOF.

7D, 100-400mm at 390mm, EF25 II extension tube, 1/50, f/11, iso:500, flash, Hand Held. ( that is iso:five hundred)

Gary.

[Randy Stout]

GARY:

The lighting turned out very well on this one. Impressive to hand hold that rig at that speed! ISO 500! Wow, will wonders never cease! (This is an inside joke. Gary loves ISO 200, and we discuss it frequently!)

I would consider softening the brown/yellow spot in front of the wings. Maybe toning down the highlights in the leaf trough.

From a comp. viewpoint, would like to have the tip of the leaf in the frame.

Cheers

Randy

[Norm Dulak]

Hi Gary.

I agree with Randy, that it would be better to include the tip of the leaf if possible.

If it were mine, I'd crop a little off the right, and possibly some off the left, to dramatize your subject a little more.

But I like this image. And those little drops of water below and to the rear of the subject are nice.

Norm

[Jonathan Ashton]

Well exposed and focused, the detail is good and the DOF is almost perfect. My only reservation is the background, it is a little blotchy, the contrast is redily fixed using a green brush at say 20-30% and just going over some of the paler areas, I think this will make a considerable difference.

[Gary Esman]

Thanks all for your input. Sounds like the big issue is the background. This venue offers some great challenges for this. So will I work on the getting better backgrounds to reduce the post processing. Thanks again, plan on heading back up there at least one more time this year.

Gary.

[Randy Stout]

Gary;

You are really close on this one, and I agree with Jon that a little bg work will really polish it a bit. I think the lighting on the bfly is really nice, and worth the little tweak of the bg.

30% clone stamp, with sample from upper left hand corner.

You can do a better job on the original, but it would be a keeper for me.

Cheers

Randy

[Dave Leroy]

Lovely colors on the butterfly. Nicely focused and exposed. Randy's repost makes a nice improvement. Just missing the darn leaf tip.

[Steve Maxson]

Hi Gary. It's nice to see a consensus! All the points I was going to make have already been covered above. You have a very nice image to work with and Randy's repost shows how a few tweaks can make it dramatically better. :S3: This could also make a nice vertical comp.

[Gary Esman]

Thanks Randy the re-post looks good! I looked "tip of leaf I do not have":e3

Gary.