Pipevine Swallowtail

[Allen Sparks]

Canon 7D, 70-200 f2.8 II, 2x TC III, monopod
ISO 800, f8, 1/500s

[Paul Lagasi]

Nice Allen, one of my favourite butterflies, very colorful, nice background and sharp....if it were mine I might crop it differently to remove the OOF flowers...but your image, your vision..thanks for sharing

[John Storjohann]

Hi Allen;

Strong composition...I might light up the dark tones in the butterfly a smidge for bit more shadow detail...and I'd be tempted to blend in some of the OOF BG flowers...the come off as a greyish highlight to my eye, and draw my eye from the image a bit, particularly in the ULC and again right beneath the butterfly. There's one dark spot in the URC I'd be tempted to blend in as well..it's a matter of personal choice. Nice capture.

[Arthur Morris]

While I love the butterfly and the soft background the oof foreground flowers are way-distracting for me and I do not think that they can be cropped out completely....

[Steve Maxson]

Hi Allen. You captured a beautiful specimen (and Ken would give you high marks for getting both antennas sharp :S3:). I like the ROT comp of the butterfly, the even light, and the background - though a few tweaks, as suggested above, would make it even better. The butterfly/central flowers/ lower right flowers make a nice diagonal flow across the frame. The OOF foreground flowers are somewhat distracting (not much you could do about those). I would suggest removing the partial leaf along the bottom edge of the frame. Overall, this is well done.

[Ken Childs]

Hey Allen, I love the BG and the bfly, but those flowers are definitely distracting. If this were mine, I'd try a significant CCW rotation and then crop in tight, removing most of the flowers. The remaining flowers could them be selectively sharpened and desaturated which I think would remove most of the distraction. There are a few white spots on the bfly that could be removed including the one on the top antenna. One of the best things about Pipevines is that awesome shade of blue....a little SH would go a long way it bringing out more of that color. Great job on getting both antennae in focus! :w3