Early morning butterfly

[Markus Jais]

Taken this morning close to Munich. Exact species not yet identified.

I liked the light and colors. I hate the plant being so close to the eyes. I tried this angle as this would at least shot the whole eye.
And the sharpness at the back end of the wings is not 100% sharp in the original file despite using f16. But it was impossible to adjust the camera 100% parallel to the butterfly without making it too nervous.
Technical data: EOS 7D, EF 3.5/180L Macro, 1/5 sec, f16, tripod. ISO 200. Some sharpening and simple Auto Tone in Photoshop.

All comments welcome.

Markus

[Bob Miller]

Markus...You handled the bg well and you have good sharpnes where it is needed most. As you know without being 100 % parallel the drop off in sharpness is expected on the back wings. The biggest distraction is that leaf near his face and that looks to me very difficult to remedy....but see what others say! If it were mine, I think I would crop a bit from the top and the LHS. Hop eto see more of your work!

[LindaHarden]

The wing sharpness doesn't bother me... It is not soft enough to be distracting at all to me. Agree about the plant being close to the eye and face but I may be a bit more bothered by placement of the butterfly in the frame... maybe cropping a little off the left or adding a little more on the right if you have it in the original... That said, I do like it overall... especially the detail in the antenna as it adds to the way my eye is drawn in.

[Steve Maxson]

Hi Markus. There are a lot of good things about this image - light, background, sharpness within your DOF, but the leaf in front of the legs and thorax is detracting (as you note above) from this otherwise strong photo. Not much you can do about that, though there are some other tweaks you might consider. I like the cropping suggestions by Bob and Linda. You could try some additional selective sharpening on the softer portions of the wings - you have a lot of detail there so I think additional sharpening will help. There are a couple sensor dust spots near the top of the frame that would be easy to remove and you might try some nr on the background.

[Markus Jais]

Thanks for all the comments and suggestions. I agree with you about the crop.

@Steve: Do you really see much noise in the image? I can't see it. at the moment, I have only a crappy and rather small monitor for a few weeks, so maybe this is why I can't see it.

Markus

[Steve Maxson]

@Steve: Do you really see much noise in the image? I can't see it. at the moment, I have only a crappy and rather small monitor for a few weeks, so maybe this is why I can't see it.

Markus

The noise I am seeing is rather subtle and not particularly objectionable. I was just thinking that some nr would smooth out the OOF background a bit more.

[Markus Jais]

The noise I am seeing is rather subtle and not particularly objectionable. I was just thinking that some nr would smooth out the OOF background a bit more.

Thanks. I am currently looking at the original image and agree with you. Markus

[Jonathan Ashton]

Excellent image Markus, I agree with the aforesaid comments, the only other suggestion to consider is that the blacks maybe just a little on the heavy side. I bet you were cursing that leaf!!