Buckeye Butterfly

[Chris Hansen]

A Buckeye in my backyard. Probably one of the most common butterflies where I live in Northern California

Canon 10D
Promaster 100mm Macro
Bogen Tripod w/3055 ballhead
Exp. Not recorded

More room at the top?
God's pure light to all,

Chris

[Julie Kenward]

Chris, yes, I'd say a tad more at the top just to give the antenna a bit more room in the frame. You did a really nice job on getting the butterfly in great detail but that BG is a bit distracting. Have you tried lightening and blurring it a bit?

Also, it would really help if you added what speed and aperture you took this at. Thanks!

[Bruce Murden]

A lovely b'fly, Chris. Used to see a lot when I lived in St. Louis, MO. To add to Julie's comments, I'd spcifically darken, clone, or change color to a shade of green for the OOF flower just off the UR tip of the b'fly, and darken the brigther greens in the LL. Bright spots in the BG tend to pull attention away from a subject. Your exposure data should be in your metadata.

Enjoy imaging more butterflies & flowers while we in the Midwest and East Coast have a glimpse of fall colors before everything goes brown for the winter :)

[Chris Hansen]

Regretfully the metadata is lost with the original somewhere in my vast unavigable data bankof images. I just bought Lightroom 2 and am in the process of learning it. Julie, great idea as all I have done so far is a blur and some sharpening. Bruce I will be enjoying the flutterbiies for as long as i can. the lower valleys had their first frost last week.

Thanks for the helpful hints.

God bless
Chris

[denise ippolito]

Hi Chris, I feel bad you lost your data on such a pretty butterfly.I morphed your butterfly in photoshop. I hope it makes you smile!

[Chris Hansen]

Denise,
I started chuckling when I pulled it up. It would make a great childrens' book about a butterfly that has a curse put and it has to find a special flower to have the curse removed. So all you flower photographers out there had better get to work!
God bless,

Chris

[denise ippolito]

That's actually a great idea for a childrens book!

[Ed Vatza]

Hi Chris,

Yes the background is a bit distracting and the image could use a bit more room at the top but the butterfly is gorgeous! Very nice.

[Robert O'Toole]

Hi Chris,

Great sharpening and nice pose, over all the butterfly is very good. The negative is of course the contrasty BG.

My new PS CD that I am working on now features a tutorial on this exact type of situation with a tight edge and a tricky BG. Email me with your email address and I can add you to my newsletter for more info.

Robert

[Mike Moats]

Hey Chris, Great looking B-fly, and agree with others on the BG.