Giant Swallowtail

[Leon Robinson Jr.]

Just another pic of the Giant Swallowtail (pretty sure it's the Giant and not the Tiger) on my favorite flower; this time with no other flowers in the background. The background is my fence. Should of used more DOF and abdomen a little hot.

Canon 7D - 300 mm + 25 E Tube - 1/250 - f4 - ISO 320 - HH - Taken at 10:30 am

[Mike Moats]

Hey Leon, I think you did well on the focus and great BG, other then I would clone out the green in the upper right corner. You may have shot this as you found it, but I keep wanting to turn my head and view it as a vertical.

[Cheryl Flory]

agree with the vertical angle. I also might try to tone down the yellows on the abdomen a bit too. Overall, a very nice image! Certainly way better than any I have gotten of these butterflies. Love how you were able to maintain detail in the blacks, too!

[Ken Childs]

Hey Leon, this is definitely a Giant Swallowtail and a very nice capture of one too! Your self critique is spot on but there are some things you can do to fix those problems. Select the abdomen and lightly paint over the bright areas with some of the darker yellow from the wing and selectively sharpening the back of the wings should make them look better. Mike's suggestion of a vertical is a good one although you'll probably need to rotate it a bit CW after turning it and you'll need to add some canvas. Since you have such a clean BG, adding canvas will be easy! A few editing tweaks will make this already nice shot really shine! :cheers:

[Steve Maxson]

Hi Leon. This is clearly much improved from your previous post. :) You captured a nice pose, bright colors, and a clean background. The critique has already been covered by yourself and the folks above so I won't repeat. While a vertical format would make a nice alternative, I also like this as presented - though I might be tempted to crop a little from the right. Overall, this is very well done and a few tweaks will make it even stronger. :)

[Adrian David]

Beautiful butterfly! Too bad that you don't have more DOF to get all the wings in focus.