Battling Butterflies

[Ken Childs]

Canon EOS REBEL T1i
Canon 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS @
Manual mode
1/2000"
F10
ISO 400
Canon 430EX w/homemade extender attached: On, Fired
HH
ACR & CS5

This was taken when I was trying for some in-flight shots. I was focused on the top butterfly, waiting for it to fly when the lower butterfly showed up and started displaying.

There was a lot of PP work done on this shot. The action was too cool to throw away so I decided I would do my best to make this work. These butterflies take up a small part of the shot so this is a big crop...I'd say what's here represents about 10% of the original capture. A flower behind the hindwings of the top butterfly was cloned away as were 2 leaves to the left of the remaining flower. There was a white wire fence behind the butterflies which left 3 large fuzzy white streaks in the BG. These were cloned away and/or blended in. Contrast was increased, SH to lighten the BG and the underside of the wings, NR and some Gaussian Blur on the BG, high pass and smart sharpening. Lots of selective sharpening done on the butterflies and the right antenna on the lower butterfly was mostly rebuilt. Did some selective color work on the flowers...maybe the yellow needs to be toned down a bit.

It's not great but it came out a lot better than I expected it would.

[Dennis Bishop]

This is beautiful, Ken, and well worth all the work you put into it. The foreground colors are very rich and are complemented by the browns of the background. You might be right about toning down the yellow flower a bit. Perhaps the five white spots in the black on the wings could be subdued a tad, too, but I'm not sure about that.

I'm glad you left those threads on the stem when you were cleaning up the background. Never would I have thought that butterflies were aggressive toward each other, but this shot sure suggests they can be. The way you cropped it adds to the energy of what's happening. Very nice work.

[Valerio Tarone]

Ken excellent capture. Fine work in PP. I'm trying to photo butterflies in flight in the summer, not yet succeeded...I'll try to remember tour equipment and data to do it, next summer--

[Julie Kenward]

A close look and you can tell there is some clone work going on but dang...nice going! If you want to minimize the dark areas around the cloning / bf bodies, try a black and white conversion with a dark vignette around the edges...it looks great!

You nailed the clarity of the two bf's...and the position of the one coming up at the other one is something you don't often see so what a great behavioral image this is!

[Jerry van Dijk]

Ken, this is an outstanding behavioral image, especially given all the work you have put in! The upper wing tip of the upper BF still looks quite soft (its outside DOF), maybe the tricks of selectively sharpening I learned from you may work well here.

[Steve Maxson]

Hi Ken. This is very cool, very difficult to pull off, and well worth all the PP that you put into it! The image holds up quite well for such a large crop and all your PP looks pretty seamless to me. Very nice comp, good colors (I agree with toning down the yellows a bit), good overall sharpness, and I like that we see both the upper and lower wing views in the same image. Very well done!

[Ken Childs]

Thanks, everyone!

For comparison, here's what the original looked like. When I'm trying for in-flight shots, I focus on the butterfly while it's feeding and then aim in the general area where I think it will go next.

[Dennis Bishop]

Thanks, everyone!

For comparison, here's what the original looked like. When I'm trying for in-flight shots, I focus on the butterfly while it's feeding and then aim in the general area where I think it will go next.

Looking at the original makes what you did with the image you posted even more impressive. Thanks for including your approach to getting in-flight shots.

[Dave Leroy]

Lovely action/behavior shot. And thanks Ken for including the original. PP'n was very well done and well worth the effort. Impressive detail and features with the large crop.