Pipevine Swallowtail

[Ken Childs]

Canon EOS REBEL T1i
Canon 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS @ 365mm
Manual mode
1/3200"
F8
ISO:800
HH
LR and CS3

Cropped, rotated it a bit CW, cloned out some messy looking plants below and to the right of the flower. Cloned away some blemishes on the wings. These things rarely hold still so even at 1/3200", there's still some motion blur on the forewing. Used High Pass sharpening on the forewing. Lightened and sharpened the eye. I did a lot of things to the flower but I'm still not thrilled with the color. I probably should have evened out the BG....please let me know your thoughts on that.

[Jay Sheinfield]

Ken,

Looks great to me. The BG is terriff!, I like seeing some tonal variation. On the flower. I might desat a bit, especially the reds to keep from competing with the BF wing color...............maybe smooth out the shade to sun line on the stem.......small potatoes.

[Steve Maxson]

Hi Ken. This is a wild pose! My first thought was that, give the law of gravity, this can't be happening - unless the butterfly is hovering beside the flower (which your description seems to indicate). :) I like the background, as presented, and the comp. Nice sharpness on the body, legs, and antennae. The forewing looks good to me, but the hindwing seems to be lacking detail - it has the look of something that has had too much NR applied. :confused: I see what you mean about the flower - the colors look rather muted to me, but yellows and oranges are easily blown out so I'm guessing you were trying to prevent/correct that. :)

[Aidan Briggs]

You did good in what looks like pretty harsh light. Nice composition, flower, and BG. I agree with Steve that the lower wing is lacking in detail.

Keep them coming!!

[Ken Childs]

The light was harsh and was coming from directly above so the hindwing was pretty dark to start with. I lightened it up but there wasn't much detail captured.

I added some blurred noise to the hindwing in this version. Any better?

84373

[Julie Kenward]

Nice repost Ken! I, too, felt that bottom wing felt a little fake until you added the noise. Nice thought on that...I don't think I'd have ever thought to do that! It worked very well.

I like how the flower bounces back the colors of the butterfly...it all works for me!

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Ken,
Thes suckers never sit still!!!.....so great job getting a nice pose. I think the repost is an improvement overall so a nice job with the tough light and an even tougher subject!!!

[Thomas Herou]

Wonderful creature!
Nice BG also.

[Stu Bowie]

Butterflies always have lovely colours, and I like perched pose. Good repost, and I find your BG to be perfect.