Sulfur Butterfly

[Ian Cassell]

Canon 7D
Canon 100mm f/2.8 Macro
Canon 430EX + Lumiquest Softbox

1/250sec f/10 ISO 250

Crop, S/H, Sharpening and a little clone of offending BG in CS5

OK, I now know the issue with square crops, but I thought it worked well here. I'm open to your thoughts, however.

[Allen Sparks]

I'm fine with the crop and your DOF is enough to pull the b'fly in full focus even though a straight on angle would be more appealing to me. Background is a little busy for my taste. Did you use much extra saturation? Just seems quite a bit saturated to me. Overall a very nice image.

[Ian Cassell]

Thanks, Allen. Actually, I didn't add any saturation at all - maybe I oversharpened it a bit? My straight-on version just did nothing for me.

[Jerry van Dijk]

Hi Ian, wonderful closup of this butterfly. I like the square crop with this composition. Like Alan, I'm a bit bothered by the angle you got on the butterfly and the busy BG. And indeed I think that you oversharpened a little, especially the flower looks a bit off. You might try selectively sharpening only the butterfly.

[Don Lacy]

Hi Ian, I am not a big fan of square crops but this one is not to bad:) I would prefer to see the BF parallel to the frame that way you could have used a wider f stop which would have helped blur the distracting BG. Also Canon is notorious for blowing the red channel at the time capture which you look like you did here easy to fix in post by desaturating the reds in PS.

[Ian Cassell]

Thanks all. It looks like I'll have to go rework this one when I get home from work. Don, I didn't realize that Canon was known for blowing the reds - I'll have to keep my eye on that.

[Ken Childs]

Ian, Allen and Don already mentioned anything I would have. The BG, especially the parts behind the antennae and the top of the wing, is too busy and may have been too close to the subject for this shot to be salvaged. But, it's always fun to try! :)

[Julie Kenward]

One last comment nobody's mentioned...I think the eye could use a little more sharpening as well. Next time try a lower aperture and try to get more of the butterfly in the focal plane so you don't end up with as much BG showing through. I do like the position of the tongue though! Awesome capture!

[Ian Cassell]

Wow, folks, thanks for all of the suggestions. I'm going back to this and playing with your ideas.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Ian,
Great advice given above.....so can't really add much more. Just keep that in mind when in the field. Subject distance to BG is huge.....and how it will affect the final presentation! I always look at the BG first.....then choose the aperature. The more parallel to the plane you get.....the less DOF you need.......unless he had his wings open.......then back to square 1. I think if you rework this....I think a smoothing out of the stem in the UL would also help.