Pipevine Swallowtail

[Allen Sparks]

Canon 7d, 300 f4 plus 1.4x TC, monopod
ISO 400, f14, 1/320s, EC -1/3

[Richard Lovison]

Beautiful image. I like the composition with the placement of the butterfly and flower and the non-distracting background. Wonderful detail in the dark wings with sharpness in the entire butterfly except for the small portion on the back, behind the head (not a problem for me). Well done.

Richard

[Ken Childs]

Hey Allen, it looks like you were able to find one of those rare Pipevines that would hold relatively still for a second or 2! I like the comp as is but as you might guess, I would crop tighter on all sides. The butterfly looks a bit soft all over so I would give the shot another round of sharpening or maybe select just the butterfly and use high pass sharpening....this would be a good subject for that plugin. The extra sharpening will make those tiny white spots more obvious so I would clone those out first. It's a good shot and a few tweaks should make it shine!

I hope you have enough of these backlogged shots to keep me looking at local butterflies until spring! :D

[Jonathan Ashton]

Wonderful shot I like the colours and composition very much - are the hairs on the thorax out of focus or perhaps have you masked them? If they are in focus I think the shot would be absolutely top notch.

[Andrew McLachlan]

Nice capture Allen, I like the separation of the wings and the abdomen.

[Julie Kenward]

This is a real beauty, Allen! These do not hold still very often so you really did well here. You even managed to bring out that irridescent blue on his abdomen, too. If I had to change one thing I'd say to move up higher so more of the yellow center of the zinnia showed up....but that's a very minor point!

[Steve Maxson]

Hi Allen. Nothing new to add - this is a beauty of a shot as noted above! Is it missing an antennae? :)

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Allen,
Another winner IMO........rare to get these guys to even remotely sit still! Very nicely done!