Coral Hairstreak

[Ken Childs]

Canon EOS REBEL T1iCanon
Canon 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS @ 400mm
Manual mode
1/1250"
F8
ISO 400
Canon 430EX: On, Fired
HH
ACR & CS5

This butterfly was down in the center of the plant so most of the light on the subject is from the flash. Some sunlight was getting through from above and behind which explains the thin shadow on the leaf that I probably should have cloned away.

Cropped, exposure, contrast, NR on the BG, smart and high-pass sharpening. There are plants in close proximity all around so to get a decent BG I had to open up to f/8 which is why the front of the leaf is a little OOF. I also had to do some work (contrast, cloning edges, sharpening) on the back antenna because it didn't look very sharp.

[Allen Sparks]

Hi Ken, Nice that you got a parallel shot of this guy - I find these hard to capture they are so small and move so fast. I like the placement of the subject in the frame and the inclusion of the leaf tip. Was this a large crop? Looking at the head seems like image quality is being affected. Nice catch either way.

Allen

[OvidiuCavasdan]

Seems that conditions were difficult and you did a good job, nice details on wings, well done at F8 and flash.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Nice image lovely colour scheme, although "sharp" I feel it lacks some fine detail, it would have been absolutely superb had you taken it with the macro lens, but perhaps this was not possible??