Great Spangled Fritilliary

[Julie Kenward]

I hope I got the ID right on this one! Today was the first day of our local botanical garden's "Butterfly Festival." They gave us all a 'cheat sheet' so we'd know what we were looking at but I seem to have photographed more that weren't on the sheet than those that were!

This was taken inside the conservatory with natural lighting. I wish I had stopped down my aperture a bit more but it was very crowded and I was afraid I'd get all kinds of people in the BG so I kept it pretty shallow most of the day. I processed the image in Camera raw & CS3 doing a levels and curves adjustment, noise reduction and sharpening. I cleaned up some stray branches around the edges and added a vignette because of the light BG.

Canon 40D, 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM
f/4, 1/320th, ISO 100
Center-weighted metering, handheld

[Ed Vatza]

Hi Julie,

It is definitely a Fritillary but I'm not 100% sure which one. But I wouldn't be surprised if it is a Great Spangled.

You certainly got up close and personal with this one. On one hand, I like the way you filled the frame but on the other it does seem a bit too boxed in. I really like the detail from the body and moving out. Stopping down for greater dof would have carried that detail farther out the wings.

Overall looks good, Julie.

[Lana Hays]

Julie
From my field guide it sure looks like a Great Spangled Fritillary......there are some other identifying marks on the underside of the wing that you and use for positive ID so I guess I'll have to stick with what I see on the topside. I agree....more DOF would be nice on the butterfly but given the circumstances I think you did fine as is. Nice color and detail. Normally I would want a little more room (got to get out of the "bird" composition) but I think this works well to give attention to the butterfly. Well done.

[Amy DeStefanis]

Hi Jules,

I like this - and I like that the focus is on the "furry" body and you can see the "furriness" extending into the wings - details you don't always see in butterflies. I like it as-is, especially considering the risk of introducing distraction in the background if you'd gone with more DOF. Under the circumstances, I'd say it was a good call :)

Did you "burn in" the edges of the frame?

Amy D.

[Julie Kenward]

Thanks everyone. I think the original crop had more room because the vignette around the edges was a last minute thought that I added to help define the photo's edges and now it does seem just a tiny bit crowded. I might go back and loosen that up a little more.

Amy, I ran a vignette action that puts a black layer mask over the photo and then you choose how much to reveal and how much to blur/fade the edges. It's a quick and easy way to apply a vignette. I found the action (called Dave's Vignette Pack) at www.atncentral.com (http://www.atncentral.com). They have several different vignette actions and they are all free - just click on the "dowload" button and it will take you to the page with all the actions on it.