Tawny Coster

[Bibhav Behera]

Canon EOS 1000D, EF 300mm F4 L IS USM

SS 1/125 (+0.3 EV)
F 8
ISO 400
Comments and Critiques welcome
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_m6-E9SjFucI/S3OfhhmmvhI/AAAAAAAACmU/nc5h5tifVMw/s1600/upload%2B4.jpg

[Julie Brown]

Beautiful butterfly Bibhav. I like the composition and the BG. Do the wings naturally look like that? To my eyes they seem a bit oversharpened.

[Bibhav Behera]

Yes the wings are like that. I believe the dew drops on it make it look that way. I chose a 'not head on' angle to get the accent of the light on the dewdrops.

[Julie Kenward]

Welcome to the macro/flora forum, Tawny! I have a few suggestions for your image if you don't mind. First off, you've blown the highlights on the butterfly - if you open the image and check the histogram you'll see that quite a bit of your image is up against the right side "wall" of the histogram. I tried to use the recovery slider to bring the details back but it's too far gone. You mentioned dew drops on the butterfly and this is probably why the image was so easily overexposed when the rest looks good - don't forget that water acts as a natural reflector and will "overcook" the whites very quickly!

From a compositional standpoint, I thought the butterfly was a little too centered in the frame but I do like the angle and the presentation on the stem of the plant. The diagonal lines are a great addition and help carry the eye of the viewer through the frame nicely. I recropped your image from the bottom, moving the butterfly more into the bottom third to give the bottom of the frame a little more weight.

I also noticed that you had a bud in the LL area and an OOF branch in the UL area so I used the clean areas to clone over those two to eliminate those distractions...the rest of the BG is clean and very nice, although it's very close to the colors of the butterfly, so I also moved the hue a bit to separate the insect from the BG. If you want a more monitone look then what you have is certainly acceptable and works - I only did this to show you what the separation between the two (the butterfly and it's background) would do for the image.

Looking forward to more images...you certainly do have an eye - just keep checking that histogram in the field for "the blinkies" (overexposure) and feel free to tell us a bit more about the image if you'd like. We love to hear how you created it, when, why, what the light was like, etc.

[Bibhav Behera]

Thanks a lot for the advice Julie,
When converting the RAW to JPEG I remember checking for the highlights in Lightroom... Wonder what I messed up. I like your repost. I dont prefer cloning so I let the bud in the background be :). This was taken early morning in a small shrubland while chasing a few birds to test my new lens... Ill keep your advice in mind. Will post more soon.

PS: the name of the butterfly is Tawny Coster :) I on the other hand am Bibhav :) Pleasure to meet u

[Kaushik Balakumar]

Bibhav, liked your composition a lot and you've got a nice BG to go with !