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Thread: Postman on orange

  1. #1
    Avian Moderator Randy Stout's Avatar
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    Default Postman on orange

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    This fellow came from the local butterfly conservancy. Very dim day, so flash needed as main light. Inorder to help tame the under leaf shadows, I positioned one of the flash heads below the lens, the other above. The background is artificial (painted fabric)

    D4 Sigma 180 f/3.5 f/8 1/200s ISO 1000 No tripods allowed, so used a collapsed monopod on a belt clip for extra support.

    Post: Selective sharpening, crop for comp. No more canvas on left unfort.

    Advice and comments always appreciated.

    Cheers

    Randy
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    Wow! Wonderful sharpness, great BG, lovely interplay between the two leaves, and their color matches the orange in the butterfly... Sorry, I can't find a complaint....

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    Hi Randy, good control of the flash here. I too like how the leaves compliment the butterfly. You got the wings perfectly in the plane of focus. To bad tripods weren't allowed. With the artificial BG, you probably could have stopped down easily to get those antennae in focus as well (or at least one of them). WEll done!

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    Macro and Flora Moderator Jonathan Ashton's Avatar
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    Very eye catching Randy. I like the bright colours the exposure etc is excellent. I would suggest a couple of things:
    a) trim a bit off the base - the OOF leaf is not adding to the image, and add some to the top, maybe add a little canvas to the left.
    b) I would have gone for f11, the wings are super but the body seems a little lacking in detail.
    c) Just maybe moving round slightly to the right would have addressed some of the DOF issue with the body

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    Avian Moderator Randy Stout's Avatar
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    Thanks everyone.

    Jon: I wanted to maintain as much of the sweep of the top leaf, and didn't want to center the butterfly to much vertically, hence the crop. I have a bit more canvas above, none on the left. Re: the f/stop, I shot a variety of different ones that day, trying to get the best combination of shutter speed, ambient light, dof, etc. I agree, a bit more would certainlly have been helpful here.

    I will do a tweak however and see how it plays.

    Thanks again to you all for your thoughts and input!

    Cheers

    Randy
    MY BPN ALBUMS

    "Tact is the art of making a point without making an enemy" Sir Isaac Newton

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    BPN Member Steve Maxson's Avatar
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    Hi Randy. Great pose and good sharpness. The orange on orange works great and I like the diagonal flow of the leaf edge. The wings look a little bit "flashed" to me (though the lighting elsewhere in the frame looks superb). Maybe it's that the flash really brings out any worn spots on the wing. You might try the tweaking trick of cloning the fuzzy OOF edges around the antenna tips to make them appear a little sharper. Overall, a very strong image!

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    Publisher Arthur Morris's Avatar
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    Wow, I never knew! I love everything about this especially the sharpness of the head/antennae/thorax region. Image design with the 2nd leaf is killer. Only wish is that the wing surface were a bit more pristine. A smidgeon less sharpening might help with the tiny speckles/sparkles....
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