Buttefly

[Jay Sheinfield]

taken at the Shaw Butterfly House..............

nikon D3
1/5 sec@ f/16
180mm
ISO 100

[dawn campbell]

lovely framing and tones in this!

[Jay Sheinfield]

Hi Dawn,

Thank you.

Jay

[Ken Childs]

Hi Jay,
I think there are a few things to consider the next time you're out shooting butterflies. IMO, this is one of those in between shots that should have been taken or cropped in closer or taken from farther away. In other words, the subject should be the entire bfly or mainly a close-up of the head, body and legs with just a bit of wing. The leaf blocking part of the bfly is problematic for a full bfly shot so maybe another angle could have fixed that. The stem in the BG is distracting but I think that would be an easy thing to clone out in PP.

The detail looks great but the overall look is too dark so try lightening it up with your favorite CS5 method.

[Don Lacy]

Hi Jay, Nice looking Rice Paper BF Contrary to what you might think I know how hard it is to get clean images at A BF house with a clean BG so nice job their. The image as posted has a green color cast which I removed in PS using the eye droppers in the curve adjustment to set the tonal values for both the whites and the blacks. Also have to agree with Ken on the composition if you're going to crop the wings you should crop all of them so it looks intentional I find leaving about half of the wings works nicely.

[Jay Sheinfield]

Thanks for the feedback..............as you can tell, I haven't done much BF work. The cropping feedback is good to know for next time.
Jay

[Julie Kenward]

Great advice, Ken, and beautiful work on the repost, Don. I really wish I could see the whole butterfly in this image - those wings are too extraordinary to leave outside the frame IMO. Now if they had been tattered and worn, this might be the way to go but, as Ken suggested, then I'd take the crop in even closer.

I also would tone down that vein in the BG leaf...it's like having a branch running behind a bird's head in the Avian forum...big no no!

[Jay Sheinfield]

Julie,

Back to Ken's point, I thought the leaf blocking area killed the full wing shot, so I opted for a crop and keep most of the wing interest. I will try a tighter crop and see how that works. The full wings are beautiful, but slightly OOF toward the rear. Also, will deal with the leaf vein.

Jay

[Ed Cordes]

I like the color and detail. i would either crop a lot tighter or move away to include the entire wing.

[Mike Fuhr]

I have to say I like the unusual nature of this crop -- it works very well for me. The repost does help bring out more of the vibrance of this beautiful butterfly. Nice eye!:)

[Anita Bower]

I congratulate you for starting to photograph butterflies. Seems rather difficult to me. I'm not a butterfly photographer, but, I like the leaves in this image. The wavy front leaf adds interest. Are the ends of the wings too soft to include? The lighter repost brings out the colors and adds pop. I look forward to more of your images.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Jay,
Excellent advice already given...but IMO this one is slavagable with just the crop tool....just above your sig....removing the green and then proportionally off the rh side.....makes the portrait! Implement the vein removal and lightening.....you've got yourself a keeper!
PS Makes sure you don't clip the black dot with the RH crop....even if it throws off the proportions.

[Jay Sheinfield]

Anita,

Thank you. The rippled leaf in front of the BF, killed the idea of a full wing shot. I'm going to try a closer crop (Roman's note below) to save the image.

Jay

[Jay Sheinfield]

Roman,

Appreciate the help, I was about to let this one go. I'll give it a try. J