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View Full Version : Tiger Swallowtail on Purple Coneflower



Janet Heintz
07-12-2010, 09:51 PM
This little beauty was in my garden yesterday. I tried to get a pleasing background, tried several different angles. I hope this worked.

Canon EOS 7D
Canon 100-400 IS Lens
ISO 320
Lens at 400
1/500 @ f10
Comments Welcome
Janet
73553

Jerry van Dijk
07-13-2010, 05:05 AM
Wonderful Janet! You got a great angle on the butterfly and a nice colorful perch and background. What was your aperture here? Adding a stop may have helped getting that one wingtip in focus, but may have done damage to your BG.

Julie Kenward
07-13-2010, 07:16 AM
Beautiful BG - as much as a hate to say it, though, I think the image would be stronger compositionally if you whacked part of the right side off (I know! We hate to lose that beautiful colorful BG!) I agree with Jerry that a little different angle or aperture might have captured the entire butterfly in the focal plane but you did very well here.

One thing you might want to work on is decreasing the size of your copyright notice - I find it pulls my attention away from the main area of focus.

Jonathan Ashton
07-13-2010, 09:28 AM
Gorgeous image, as suggested a smaller aperture would have made a difference and it may be worthwhile checking on your focal point, I suspect it was on the lower body or wing edge (??) it may be also worthwhile setting your lens to just under 400mm, all these minor things help increase sharpness (and dare I say it....... a tripod - yes I know I am becoming boring now)

Roman Kurywczak
07-13-2010, 09:45 AM
Hey Janet,
If you do get a chance.....please post the SS and f-stop so that we can better evaluate the image. Just hit edit on your OP......and add the info.

Well....everyone above must be paying attention:)....becuase they gave some excellent advice and I can't add much to it....so I will go to the PP'ing side....tweaking the eye a bit by selecting just that area and giving it a bit of brightness contrast....will give it just some needed depth. We aren't talking much! Same goes for the top of the coneflower.....just a little bit of a levels layer...perhaps just on the mid tones.....draw the attention more to the action of the BF feeding. Minor tweaks that should go a long way! You really nailed the BG here.....while I normallydon't like too much variation there.....the OOF flowers just add a whole other dimension to the scene. All in all.....still very nicely done!

Ken Childs
07-14-2010, 10:13 AM
Janet, this is very nice.
As Roman said, the main points have already been covered. Taking his advice should really take this up a notch or 2.

Janet Heintz
07-14-2010, 12:44 PM
Thank you all for your input. I will keep all these useful points in mind.
Janet