waiting for the sun

[dave blackwell]

got out early after a rainy night some of the butterflys were very wet canon 40d, sigma150macro. f13.exposure 1/400,exposure bias -1stop.iso 500 .my first attempt at this type of shot how would you stop the big round spots in back ground cheers dave

[Julie Kenward]

Those "big round spots" are called bokeh and they are not always a bad thing! You get them when the light is coming directly at your lens so switching position so you had the butterfly's face in your direction would probably have solved the bokeh problem. That being said, I like the BG as it is!

Because the light was to your front, you also got a dark front to the butterfly. Using fill flash here can really help. You can also do a shadow/highlight or levels adjustment in Photoshop at this point to bring up the brightness on the butterfly a bit more.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Dave,
Jules is correct on all counts......didn't leave me much to say;). Even if you don't have a flash....the pop up.....powered down.....would have helped open up the shadow side just enough to get all those details out. Take a look at Jonathans 2 below your post......he used the flash very effectively to open up the BF. You don't want to use the flash too strongly...to eliminate the rim light you have......so start with much less power.....and work your way up if possible. As for the Bokeh.....I'm OK with it but would have preferrred the angle to be better on the BF.....try to keep that head parallel of slightly towards us. None of these are real deal breakers......just slight improvements to take these up another notch. You are doing a great job of isolating them......and that is more than 1/2 the battle!

[Ken Childs]

Hey Dave, I think this is fantastic as is! I'm really partial to backlit subjects and the light on this with those shining wet edges is perfect, IMHO.

It all depends on what you're trying for. I would have gone for this shot first and then if the butterfly stayed put, I'd try some with flash.

[dave blackwell]

hi julie and roman and ken thanks for the great advice :)

[Mike Moats]

Hey Dave, I aggre with all of the above. For a standard b-fly shot you would have liked to had some light on the front side be it with flash or reflectors. I also agree with Ken that this is more of a backlighting highlights on the edge of the B-fly, giving it a more artistic feel. My only wish would be it having sharper focus on the high lighted area surrounding the b-fly.