Black Swallowtail train

[Michael Lloyd]

Papilio polyxenes asterias <-- like I would know that :D bugguide.net (http://bugguide.net) is your friend...

If I was going to do any photoshop work to this image I would get rid of the leaves in the lower left corner.

EOS1DsMKIII manual
180mm f3.5L macro handheld with ring flash in manual at 1/4 power

ISO 200
1/100@ f20

[Arthur Morris]

I love the line-up! The colors and patterns are neat too. Why handheld in the sun at 1/100sec?

Any idea as to why they are different colors?

[Michael Lloyd]

I love the line-up! The colors and patterns are neat too. Why handheld in the sun at 1/100sec?

Any idea as to why they are different colors?

I have been walking 3 - 5 miles a day in preparation for a trip to the Tetons in early June. On the day that I found these I was carrying my camera, macro lens, and Canon macro ring flash. With macro I generally shoot for max DOF so I was stopped down pretty tight and at ISO 200 the scene called for 1/100s. I shoot the flash in manual and adjust power / shutter speed as needed for exposure. Honestly... there might be a better way to set this up so any input would be appreciated. Flash and I haven't really become comfortable with one another unless it's strobes in a studio environment.

I need to ask the people on BugGuide.Net about the color difference. If I get an answer I'll post it.

[Ken Childs]

The light looks a bit harsh but not all that bad. I think it would definitely look better with the leaf.

I have some plants that bring these every year and the color differences are just natural variations.

Start about 1/4 of the way down this page and you can see the changes from egg to adult. http://www.finishflagfarms.com/other/kens_pics/butterflies2/index.html

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks for the info Ken. You have some nice stuff on the site.

[Arthur Morris]

Hi Michael,

re:

On the day that I found these I was carrying my camera, macro lens, and Canon macro ring flash.

Please confirm that you are hand-holding...

With macro I generally shoot for max DOF so I was stopped down pretty tight

With 180mm of working distance and two relatively large subjects you will have some decent depth of field. About how far from the subjects would you be here?

... and at ISO 200 the scene called for 1/100s.

Why ISO 200 and not 400?

I shoot the flash in manual and adjust power / shutter speed as needed for exposure. Honestly... there might be a better way to set this up so any input would be appreciated. Flash and I haven't really become comfortable with one another unless it's strobes in a studio environment.

It would seem in this situation that you are using flash as fill. Why, because the sky is relatively light toned. Are you familiar with the differences between flash as main light and flash as fill?

[Kaushik Balakumar]

Nice image Michael.
I would certainly KEEP the green leaves in LRC. It adds to the image IMO.

[Michael Lloyd]

Hi Michael,

re:

On the day that I found these I was carrying my camera, macro lens, and Canon macro ring flash.

Please confirm that you are hand-holding...
Yessir, I was hand holding.

With macro I generally shoot for max DOF so I was stopped down pretty tight

With 180mm of working distance and two relatively large subjects you will have some decent depth of field. About how far from the subjects would you be here?

That's true. If I remember right I was at least 3' away from them

... and at ISO 200 the scene called for 1/100s.

Why ISO 200 and not 400?

I was using an EOS1DsMk3. I realize that it's not horrible at ISO 400 however I usually try to limit my ISO to 200 with that camera when I can. I thought that with fill flash I could get away with ISO 200

I shoot the flash in manual and adjust power / shutter speed as needed for exposure. Honestly... there might be a better way to set this up so any input would be appreciated. Flash and I haven't really become comfortable with one another unless it's strobes in a studio environment.

It would seem in this situation that you are using flash as fill. Why, because the sky is relatively light toned. Are you familiar with the differences between flash as main light and flash as fill?

Yes I do. I metered the sky and then set the flash to "kiss" a little light into the scene. The sun was my main. I think I "smacked" a little too much light into the scene. I shoot by the histogram and I've been trying to push it further to the right but in this case I wasn't sure if it was the bright background that was pushing the histogram to the right or not so I left the flash power higher than necessary

Comments in red

[Jonathan Ashton]

Lovely shot I like the composition and colours - regards the flash maybe a little OTT - would Curves or Highlights or a little Burn help here?

[Michael Lloyd]

Thanks for all of the feedback. The light finally came on, pun intended and I took a shot at toning down the flash. I took the fast way out and used a contrast mask in a curves layer, set to Normal, to take some of the "flashiness" out of the image. It's a quick and easy process that is usually very effective. If you're not familiar with it I can go into it here in another post.

This took about 30 seconds to do so if it still needs a tweak let me know.

[Jonathan Ashton]

"If you're not familiar with it I can go into it here in another post."

Yes please!:)

[Michael Lloyd]

I don't think that there is a mechanism for sharing Photoshop techniques unless you are an admin so I guess I'll just put the technique here.

The keystrokes are Mac-centric so you'll have to translate them if you are on a PC. It's been so long since I've done CS on a PC I don't remember them :)

Open the image. Preferably a large image. I use large TIF's. Once you convert to JPG it's not quite but almost a lost cause to rescue or adequately correct anything.

If you can't see the Channels pallet click Window then select Channels.

Command click the RGB Channel icon. Marching Ants will appear on the image.

Option Click the white / black circle at he bottom of the Layers Pallet. If you don't have the layers pallet visible :confused: seriously... why even own Photoshop? :eek: :) If you can't see the Layers pallet click Window then select Layers (on my Mac I hit F7)

A window will pop up. Select Curves. Another box will pop up. You can give the layer a name like Local Contrast Enhancement or LCE or just use the default. There is a Mode selection box at the bottom. Normal is a good start. Luminosity, Hue, Saturation, and Color are all possible selections. For the caterpillar I used Normal. Opacity is left at 100. You can tweak any of these later. Click ok. BTW There is a tremendous amount of control available to the user with this simple method of creating a layer with a mask (exclusive of the first step of clicking on the Channels icon). This is a good thing to know.

Now you have a curves layer with a contrast mask applied to the layer. Option click on the mask and you can see what it looks like. Basically it's a black and white mask with shades of gray (you can add a separate curves adjustment to the mask but I rarely need to do that). Black allows no correction through, white allows all of the correction through, and the various shades of gray allow varying strengths of the correction to come through. Option click again to go back to the image. You don't really care what the mask looks like. I just wanted you to see it and grasp what it does.

In the case of the caterpillars the exposure was bunched to the right. I slid the black point out to about 25% and then grabbed the curve at the midpoint peak in the graph and pulled it down, sliding it back and forth, until I liked what I saw. Normally the exposure is more balanced so I would normally grab the line at the midpoint and pull it down or push it up to adjust the image rather than slide the black point or white point.

You can invert the mask by clicking on it and hitting Command I. That affects the image in a much different way. If the image is too dark, inverting the mask is usually the way to go.

I should mention that the credit for me learning this technique goes to John Paul Caponigro (http://www.johnpaulcaponigro.com/) and Mac Holbert (http://www.johnpaulcaponigro.com/lib/artists/holbert.php). They taught it during a 2009 workshop that I attended.

[Arthur Morris]

Hi Michael,

re:

Yessir, I was hand holding.

AH, then I would recommend a shutter speed of at least 1/250 sec.

With macro I generally shoot for max DOF so I was stopped down pretty tight

With 180mm of working distance and two relatively large subjects you will have some decent depth of field. About how far from the subjects would you be here?

That's true. If I remember right I was at least 3' away from them.

In that case, you would have had more than 1/3 " d-o-f past the point of focus at f/16, way more than enough to render the whole caterpillars sharp> ISO 400 and f/16 would have given you a safer shutter speed for hand-holding.

... and at ISO 200 the scene called for 1/100s.

Why ISO 200 and not 400?

I was using an EOS1DsMk3. I realize that it's not horrible at ISO 400 however I usually try to limit my ISO to 200 with that camera when I can. I thought that with fill flash I could get away with ISO 200

Again, my concerns are with handholding the 180 at 1/100 sec.... If you wanted to stay at 200 then f/11 would like have given you sufficient d-o-f (1/4" past the point of focus....)

I shoot the flash in manual and adjust power / shutter speed as needed for exposure. Honestly... there might be a better way to set this up so any input would be appreciated. Flash and I haven't really become comfortable with one another unless it's strobes in a studio environment.

It would seem in this situation that you are using flash as fill. Why, because the sky is relatively light toned. Are you familiar with the differences between flash as main light and flash as fill?

Yes I do. I metered the sky and then set the flash to "kiss" a little light into the scene.

Here's where I get confused: if you want to use flash as fill, then why not dial in -1 or -2 stops? Why work in manual flash mode???

The sun was my main. I think I "smacked" a little too much light into the scene.

Possibly too much flash, thus my point immediately above :)

I shoot by the histogram and I've been trying to push it further to the right but in this case I wasn't sure if it was the bright background that was pushing the histogram to the right or not so I left the flash power higher than necessary.

Likely not the best plan :)

[Arthur Morris]

ps: The repost looks quite fine.

[Michael Lloyd]

I completely agree on all. A more deliberate approach to taking the shot would have been a better option overall.


Here's where I get confused: if you want to use flash as fill, then why not dial in -1 or -2 stops? Why work in manual flash mode???

With studio strobes the only adjustment that I have is power level (I tend to shoot with flash in manual because that's what I am used to doing and I don't like ETTL. I can still adjust fstop or shutter speed or both to fine tune if it's needed). A short version of how the setup is made goes something like this- Set the main so that the light coming to the subject yields about 1/60 and f8 on the Sekonics. The camera is set to 1/60 and f8 (my exposure meter is a Sekonics. There are other meters. I just like the Sekonics). Set the hair light about a stop less. Background is about a stop less. In my case the strobes are triggered by the Sekonics (and me) so setup is fast and easy. All I have to worry about is posing the subject... and I suck at that so I don't do a lot of studio work :D

In the field, I meter the background and set the camera up for good exposure for the background. Honestly... I hosed that up big time for my posted shot because I hurried the shot (standing in high weeds and wearing shorts = bug bites and stinging stuff). Then I pick a starting point, in this case 1/2 power. Shoot it. Look at the histogram and decide what to do next. Again... I messed that up with this shot because the histogram would have told me to drop the flash power to 1/4, possibly 1/8, and instead I called it good. Yay for shooting RAW.

[Arthur Morris]

Darn those bugs. Hey, TX has ticks and chiggers....

[Michael Lloyd]

:D Yes we do... all the more reason for me to head for the Tetons in a week (that and the Black Bear and Grizzly have been active... which means they'll disappear 30s after I get there)

[Jonathan Ashton]

Thanks very much for the Photoshop tip Michael.

[Michael Lloyd]

You're welcome. I hope it's useful