Common Wood Nymph

[Beth Goffe]

I'm appreciating the relative dearth of birds lately as I'm learning all about butterflies. I captured this Common Wood Nymph in East Hampton earlier this weekend. I'm not sure of its placement in the frame but I had trouble with all of the vegetation around it and this was what I came up with.

(I'm going to revisit my other image with the sulphur and the bee and hope to get it up some time tomorrow.)

40D, 100-400L, 1/1600s, f/5.6, 400mm, EC +2/3, ISO 640

http://www.pbase.com/bgoffe/image/115413580/original.jpg

[Markus Jais]

I think the placement in the frame is ok but all the vegetation is a bit distracting, especially the reflections on the leaves ad the pale and out of focus twig in the lower left. Moving a little closer may have helped (if the lens allows it).
In situations like this I often follow this rule: "If you can't make it good, make it big".

Markus

[Beth Goffe]

Thanks, Marcus. Yeah, I couldn't get any closer to this guy because of the lens so I knew I'd have trouble with the background. I was out looking for birds, which is why I was using the 100-400 zoom (which I didn't note in my EXIF). So this is as good as it gets.

[Markus Jais]

Thanks, Marcus. Yeah, I couldn't get any closer to this guy because of the lens so I knew I'd have trouble with the background. I was out looking for birds, which is why I was using the 100-400 zoom (which I didn't note in my EXIF). So this is as good as it gets.

I had the same problem yesterday :)
I was photographing a flower with the 4/300L IS and then a beautiful butterfly landed. I would have needed a macro lens to get it big and free off distractions in the BG. I ended up making a 4 MP crop but it didn't help that much and I don't like to crop too much with my EOS 40D.
Defeated by nature :)

Markus

[Julie Kenward]

Let me start off by saying yes, the vegetation is distracting; however, you sure got a beautiful butterfly with lots of great detail and a nice exposure. What to do? Normally, I'd suggest making lemonade out of lemons - maybe turning the entire background (BG) into dark black and letting the butterfly carry the image that way but their antenna and legs are almost impossible to select and look believable. You could also try the liquify filter and drag the BG into big swirls and then blur it out. Or...you could do the mega crop and really try to get that BG as diffused and blurred as possible.

Or you could go back again tomorrow and find that same butterfly!

Keep trying...and take a 70-200 with you next time!

[Steve Maxson]

The butterfly itself is very nicely done, Beth. As noted above, the background with its mixed light, detracts from an otherwise good image. Jules has some interesting suggestions, but maybe the best one is to try again with a closer-focusing lens to make the butterfly more dominant in the frame and to blur the background more. :)

[Beth Goffe]

Thanks, everyone, for the input! I'll have to play with the background a bit as I probably won't be heading back to East Hampton any time soon (and I don't really want to anyway :)). Hopefully I'll encounter these guys in other wooded places.

Unfortunately, I don't have a 70-200 lens. The only other I have is a 17-85 which is a nice lens, assuming the butterflies are not skittish. I'll keep plugging away...

[Fabs Forns]

Hi Beth, the butterfly is gorgeous and I also feel, like the rest, that the BG takes away from it.
Here's an option, I used Focal Point to blur and darken the BG and cropped some off the right. Hope you like it.

[Beth Goffe]

Not a bad solution at all, Fabs! I really was taken by the butterfly but that background just confounded me. Is Focal Point a PS plug-in?

[Julie Kenward]

I used that same technique on a photo of a hummingbird today but I used the filter/render/lighting effects to do it.

[Bob Allen]

I find wood nymphs to be so skitterish that "you takes your photo and you takes what you can get." Plus, wood nymphs are only out for a short while (short-lived as adults), so you may not see it again until next year and you'd have to get very lucky to repeat the situation. The butterfly is nice & sharp, thus useable. The bg is distracting and too large, so I'd crop it down. Perhaps even use Fabs' trick, then crop more than she did.