Small Postman Butterfly

[Gary Esman]

7D, 310mm with a 100-400mm and a EF 25II extension, f/7.1, 1/160, iso 250, fill flash, handheld.

Hello, shooting mostly birds the macro arena is rather new territory for me. I believe I posted a butterfly last year. This was taken at the Butterflies are blooming display in Grand Rapids, Michigan. This yearly event in the spring draws rather large crowds and yesterday was the the same. I have this week off and am planning on going back during the week when hopefully the crowds will be smaller. Trying to figure out what to do better for the second trip. This was a quick shot on the way out and happens to be one of my favorites. My self critique would be to have the antennae in focus and a little cleaner background, doing away with the small dark area behind him and the green area in the LRC. Thanks for looking and appreciate the comments. A smaller f/stop will be used this week. :S3:

Gary.

[Jerry van Dijk]

Hi Gary, I think you already did a good job! Apart from the points you already mentioned, I would advise you to watch the angle you get on the butterfly. If you're going for a shot from the side, then try to get as much of the butterfly in one plane as you can. As you may notice, the lower parts of the wings, which are out of the plane of focus are quite soft now. Stopping down of course also helps, but may ruin your BG.
Another thing I would encourage you to do is to try getting some shots without flash. It is my experience that using flash often removes some of the nice "3D" details of the butterflies and sometimes washes out some of that lovely colors. Your camera should be able to handle the high ISO you need quite well.

[Gary Esman]

Hi Gary, I think you already did a good job! Apart from the points you already mentioned, I would advise you to watch the angle you get on the butterfly. If you're going for a shot from the side, then try to get as much of the butterfly in one plane as you can. As you may notice, the lower parts of the wings, which are out of the plane of focus are quite soft now. Stopping down of course also helps, but may ruin your BG.
Another thing I would encourage you to do is to try getting some shots without flash. It is my experience that using flash often removes some of the nice "3D" details of the butterflies and sometimes washes out some of that lovely colors. Your camera should be able to handle the high ISO you need quite well.

Thanks Jerry appreciate ideas, I guess head angle does matter so much in butterflies:S3: Will try your suggestions!

Gary.

[Mitch Haimov]

Looks like your experience with birds transfers well. Jerry already offered some good suggestions. Good luck on your next trip!

[Steve Maxson]

Hi Gary. A colorful and interesting looking butterfly. You did well with your self critique and Jerry has offered some good suggestions. I would suggest that you could select the soft areas of the bottom wing and do some additional selective sharpening there - I tried that with my recent butterfly post and it made a definite improvement. With the antenna, you could try zooming your original image up to 200-300% and then carefully cloning the OOF blur around the edges - this should make the antenna appear to be a little sharper (I'm picking up some antenna tips from Ken :S3:). I hope to see more of these.

[Brendan Dozier]

Great colors on this, Gary, and like the composition. Good suggestions and tips from Jerry & Steve. Nicely done!

[Ken Childs]

Hey Gary, it seems to me that you already covered this critique pretty well yourself! Steve covered the suggestions on the antenna and the extra sharpening on the rear edge of the wing but I'll add that after you do that extra sharpening, try selecting just the very edge and apply a round or 2 of Sharpen Edges. With a nice soft BG like this one, you can use a quick mask and it usually doesn't matter of you're sloppy with your selection since that filter wont do much to areas without edges. Sometimes that can make all the difference. :S3:


It is my experience that using flash often removes some of the nice "3D" details of the butterflies and sometimes washes out some of that lovely colors. Your camera should be able to handle the high ISO you need quite well.If you can do this successfully, that's great but unfortunately most butterflies are active during the heat of the day when the sun is high and lighting it at its harshest. Without using some flash, you'll usually end up with shadows and/or bright spots that can ruin the shot.

[Gary Esman]

Thank you all I appreciate your time and expertise!

Gary.