Butterfly balance

[Randy Stout]

This butterfly was captured yesterday in Grand Rapids, MI at the Meijer Gardens butterfly conservatory. Fun place to visit, a challenge to shoot because of crowds, no tripods and limited access to some areas.

Although lots of butterflies still, it is towards the end of the exhibition, and a lot of them are getting fairly beat up. I was lucky with this one, he was still in good shape.

I liked the balance and shape of the of the perch.

Nikon D500 70-180 micro, at 180mm, f/8, ISO 800, manual, hand held. R1C1 for illumination. Artificial background courtesy of Roy van Loo. We work the butterflies as a team.

Cropped for comp, cleaned up a few spots in background.

Advice and comments always appreciated.

Cheers

Randyt

[John Mack]

Looks very nice. Like the composition and the detail of the butterfly. Good background as well.

[Steve Maxson]

Very nice lighting, comp, pose, and background! Good job getting the body and wings within your DOF. To my eye, the butterfly seems just a bit oversharpened. Also, you might consider some careful cloning to remove some of the fuzzy edges of the OOF antenna - to make it appear to be a little sharper. Just a couple potential tweaks to an already strong image!