skipper on thistle

[LindaHarden]

CC requested. First post. Wanting to improve skills in butterfly/insect close-up photography.

Camera D700
Lens 300m F/4D and kenko 20mm ext tube
Monopod for stability
Shutter 1/320s
ISO 400
Fstop F10
EV -.3
Flash SB700 flash with diffusion dome
Processing in Capture NX2: Cropped slight contrast and sharpening. This is a smallish butterfly (not sure which skipper either) so cropping is significant.

[Jonathan Ashton]

I think you have done an excellent job here. The butterfly obviously chooses it's own position, under these circumstances I would have tried to get the shot from the opposite side to try to eliminate the petals in front of it. I appreciate this may not have been possible, the only other alternative would be to see if it would move to a more favorable position. Exposure and focus are good, the antennae are slightly out but there's not much you can do about that taken from this angle. I look forwards to more!!

[LindaHarden]

Thank you for your thoughts on the photo. I have been trying to pre-select positions that allow for cleaner backgrounds but in this case the butterfly came and went quickly and never positioned exactly like I wanted. I'm still having better luck than my previous stalking methods. DOF is something that I'm still struggling with (a lot) and your comment on the antennae make me think I wasn't stopped down quite enough. maybe I should have been at F14 or F16. Thanks again. I hope to post another photo soon.. Oh... i think this butterfly is a cloudywing, one of the broadwing skippers.

[Jonathan Ashton]

We have several species of skippers here in the UK but this is not one of them. It is nice to get antennae in focus but I wouldn't die in a ditch over it if you get my drift, it is often fortuitous that they are in focus, the reason being that they are always moving them around, it is frequently the case you will get on in focus and not the other.

[Steve Maxson]

Hi Linda and welcome to the Macro forum! This is an excellent first post - good sharpness, comp, exposure, and background. Nice use of the flash - it's not noticeable at all. Your image would be even stronger if more of the skipper's body was visible - but that is not bothering me very much in this case. A trick you can try with the antennae is to zoom in to about 300% and carefully clone the fuzzy OOF edges - this will make the antennae appear to be a little sharper. I hope to see more of your macro work!