Fueling up common meadow brown butterfly

[christopher galeski]

this is another shot of common meadow brown,sucking nectar out of this thistle,cannon 7D,cannon 100mm macro f/2.8, is,L,usm,tripod,small crop,sharpening,f/14,1/60s,iso400.comments good or bad thanks.

[Jason Stander]

Great shot Christopher... this is for me much better than the previous post... comp, detail, IQ, is for me spot on... two minded about the bg ( a bit busy for me???)...you left a cloning artifact in the bg above the BF????... your exposure is very well handled... VVVVVWD!:S3:

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Christopher,
not sure if it is an artifact or just a highlight I get sometimes too....but smoothing it out is an easy tweak and good catch by Jason. I too think this is much stronger than the previous....the bloom has nicer details and while there is some falloff on the back of the BF.....I think it is acceptable and works! I'm ok with the BG also as it is muted enough for my tastes. Very nicely done overall!

[christopher galeski]

thanks for comments,Jason,I did not clone anything out,but well spotted,I looked at the original raw file,and there is not anything there,its apeared after uploading,its a mystery?,but easy removed.thanks again.

[Brendan Dozier]

This looks great, Christopher, nice composition & good detail on both bloom and BF. I really liked your other close-up, would love to see a tighter crop of this one, close-up of both BF head and bloom might work nice as well. Well done!

[Nick Palmieri]

Like it as presented. Good angle on the butterfly. The BG works for me.

[Julie Kenward]

Christopher, on the BG - try pulling the brightness of the greens down a bit in pp and see if that makes the BG feel less busy. Sometimes the greens can go a little "neon" and that can easily overload the senses. I'd start with a hue/saturation adjustment layer, change it to greens only and then try moving away from the yellow end toward the blue and see if that works. Or, just try desaturating the greens a bit (but don't go so far as to make them flat and dull.)

Nice DOF on the insect and plant.

[Steve Maxson]

Hi Christopher. For my tastes, I prefer this version to your previous one. I like the comp, the butterfly gave you a great pose, and you have good sharpness on both perch and butterfly (you might try some additional selective sharpening on the back half of the butterfly's wings were they are starting to go soft). I'm OK with the background, but Jules has some good suggestions that you might try experimenting with to see if you can make it look even better. Overall, this is very well done.