First butterfly

[Bob Sumitro]

This is my first butterfly picture.
I took several pictures from various different angle... the butterfly was somehow cooperative :D ... but this is the one that I like most. I was able to capture the picture of the antennae against the bright OOF leaves background... other wise it won't be visible. Too bad one antennae is shorter than the other.
The bright OOF background (leaves) was intentional, and that's one reason why I like this picture. Does it work?

Post processing was RAW conversion using DPP, where I adjusted the angle a little (which process also cropped the pic a bit), then converted to tiff and processed with PS Elements 6 where I darkened a bright OOF spot on the low left hand corner and resized for web.

Canon 7D, 135L @f/2, 1/125 and ISO 1600.
Critiques and comments will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for looking,
bob

[Vida van der Walt]

Hi Bob. You did very well for a first BF image. It almost looks like an in flight image. Love the shape of those wings and a nice bg. I would prefer the BF to be more diagonal in the frame and it would be nice to see this image posted a bit larger.:)

[Randy Stout]

Bob:

Vida hit the high points. I like the subtle spider web in LLC. In general, the pictures look a bit more dynamic if the butterfly is on an angle in the frame, and not dead center. You might be able to give the butterfly a bit more snap by some selective sharpening.

Cheers. They are great fun, always lots of challenges and rewards.

Randy

[Stuart Frohm]

Thanks very much for posting this image, which I enjoy. I agree with comments above, except that I do not prefer that the butterfly be more diagonal in this frame. (I general, I probably would prefer that. However, this image works very nicely for me. And at f2, I suspect something likely would be out of focus if the butterfly were on the diagonal.)
I hope to see more of your images of butterflies and other subjects.

[Randy Stout]

Stuart:

When mentioning the diagonal placement, it was rotated around a central vertical axis coming out of the plane of the image, not tipped out of plane. I agree, with f/2 there would be real problems with DOF!

Which raises an interesting point. Looking at the techs, I can see why Bob went to that f/stop, but macro in general is really tough with such shallow DOF. For butterflies, I generally use a minimum of f/8, and often go smaller yet. Obviously, you need extra light, either natural or supplimental (flash) to do that. Can be a challenge to get the balance just right, but I do think it opens up a lot more options.

Just my experience with butterflies here.

Cheers

Randy

[Stuart Frohm]

Thanks, Randy.
Stu

Stuart:

When mentioning the diagonal placement, it was rotated around a central vertical axis coming out of the plane of the image, not tipped out of plane. I agree, with f/2 there would be real problems with DOF!

Which raises an interesting point. Looking at the techs, I can see why Bob went to that f/stop, but macro in general is really tough with such shallow DOF. For butterflies, I generally use a minimum of f/8, and often go smaller yet. Obviously, you need extra light, either natural or supplimental (flash) to do that. Can be a challenge to get the balance just right, but I do think it opens up a lot more options.

Just my experience with butterflies here.

Cheers

Randy

[Mike Moats]

Hey Bob, agree on angling the position on the B-fly. Love the spider web, and don't mind the the one antennae being shorter. The light green works well outlining the B-fly.

[Bob Sumitro]

Thank you very much guys, I really appreciate your critiques.
The angle was something that I struggled with when post processing the picture...should I level it, or should I leave it as is ... and post processing skill is definitely something that I'm lack of. I find it's really difficult, and quite frustrating, to coordinate my eye and my hand movement on the mouse when doing something like magnetic lasso :o

Randy, I'll keep in mind to shoot at small aperture next time, thanks.

bob

[Ken Childs]

Bob, welcome to the world of butterfly photography!

If you have enough canvas, rotate the entire image. Here's an example of what can easily be done in pp.