Peacock Butterfly

[Nigel Kibble]

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2871/9363907449_46d5f822c1_b.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/95117931@N04/9363907449/) Peacock (http://www.flickr.com/photos/95117931@N04/9363907449/) by kibbsnk (http://www.flickr.com/people/95117931@N04/), on FlickrTaken with Nikon D3100 , Tamron 70-300mm Di LD , 5.6F , zoomed macro on lens , hand held , Aperture Priority , Exposure 1/2000 , WB set to sunny,The butterfly behaved beautifully for me on a very hot afternoon ,

[Jonathan Ashton]

Nigel this is a big improvement the colours are much more natural and your plane of focus is more appropriate. the background is unobtrusive. You provide the Shutter speed but not the aperture, my guess is the aperture is fairly wide and this has provided a narrow DOF. The "eyes" look pretty sharp and focused but the rest of the butterfly is just a little soft.
1. For shots like this you will need (generally speaking) f8 - f11 or even f16 sometimes.
2. When focusing ensure the focal point(s) is where you want it to optimise the DOF.
3. Consider if you need to lock focus or not.
4. I always use continuous focus (AI Servo) and if necessary I lock the focus but this is not usually necessary especially in conditions like these where there is likely to be some breeze.

[Nigel Kibble]

Thanks for the kind remarks the aperture was f5.6 and I taken on board your comments and hope to improve with practice

[Steve Maxson]

Hi Nigel. You captured a beautiful specimen in nice light and this is a big improvement over your first post. Jon has, again, given you some good suggestions above. In addition to those, I have a few more to help you improve your technique - the sharpest part of your image appears to be the butterfly's abdomen - you will want to have your sharpest focus around the head and then have enough DOF to make other important areas sharp as well. This can be tricky with a small, moving subject and a small DOF to work with. In terms of composition, it is usually better to move your subject away from the center of the frame and it is usually better if the subject is facing into the frame rather than out of it. Cropping and comp are subjective, but I see a couple of alternate presentations for this image. One would be to crop from the right up to the edge of the lower flower. This would remove some of the distracting bright areas of the background and would move your subject off-center and make it appear to have more room to look into on the left. Another option might be to crop from both left and right giving you a vertical format. Just some things think about and keep in mind the next time out. :S3:

[Anita Bower]

This is a lovely and stunning butterfly. I think the light and exposure are just right. You received excellent advice above, which I'm taking since I'm new to butterfly photography also. Thanks for sharing.

[Arthur Morris]

Nigel, That is one gorgeous butterfly and it is in perfect condition. While sharpening up the subject a smaller aperture would have brought up unwanted BKGR detail (at least for my tastes). Agree on placing the butterfly more to the right. Welcome and let's see some more.