Green-veined white on thistle

[Jerry van Dijk]

Here's one from last summer. This was taken on the transect I count butterflies on as part of a national monitoring program. Green-veined whites (Pieris napi) are very difficult to distinguish from their relative the Small white (Pieris rapae) when they are in flight. The trick I use is photographing them quickly when they sit down for a quick snack, or sometimes in flight. The colored veins on the wing are the easy giveaway to distinguish the two species. Sometimes they sit still long enough for a nice composition like this one. I only keep wishing that we could see more of it's face.

Panasonic DMC-FZ18, handheld, 83 mm (500 mm eq.), ISO-100, F/4.2, 1/250 sec, EC -0.7, pattern metering, aperture priority, RAW.
RAW processing in Silkypix, PP in Corel Photopaint. Minor tweaks on levels and sharpness.

[Julie Kenward]

Jerry, sure...a complete face would be nice...but - LOVE that the eye is peeking out! If you can't get the whole face this is the next best thing. I really like the stark dark BG with the deep purples and then that beautiful butterfly. I might trim a bit off the right side but only a little - everything else is picture perfect.

So did you create the black BG in pp or was that natural somehow?

[Jerry van Dijk]

Hi Jules, thanks for the compliments! This is a completely natural BG. The thistles grow on open grassland, bordered by shady trees and bushes. Those are the BG of this image. Apparently, they are just the right distance away. I often have trouble with creating nice even BG's with this bridge camera, because it has greater DOF than DSLRs. But sometimes, I get lucky :D!

[Arthur Morris]

Excellent self-critique, and yes, amazing d-o-f. I love the dark BKGR. EXP and sharpness are right-on.

[Jerry van Dijk]

Thanks Arthur, nice to see you are hanging around in the Macro section as well! It seems we get a lot of 'birders' lately who are giving macro a go. I'll have to post some bird pictures soon to return the favor.

[Arthur Morris]

You are welcome Jerry. Funny thing is that my "macro" lens is almost always the 800 with a TC and some extension tubes!

[Danny J Brown]

Hey Jerry - I really love this image, especially way the little eye is peeking out between the thistle needles. Nice.

[Vida van der Walt]

Hi Jerry. Beautiful image. Love the peek a boo eye, great bg, detail and comp. Lovely light as well.:)

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

So nice butterfly and composition. The light is great as well.

[Jerry van Dijk]

Thanks everyone for your compliments. I got lucky with the light. It was just after noon on quite a sunny day, but at the time of this photo, the tiniest bit of cloud just filtered the harshness out.