Here's one from 2 years ago when I visited a very nice butterfly garden in Honfleur, France. It's Idea loecone, the Paper kite if I'm correct about the English common name. Minor PP work, except I cloned out an OOF flower in the LL corner. Stripes in the BG are from a palm leaf.
Panasonic DMC-FZ18, 56 mm (336 mm eq), handheld, ISO 200, f/3.6, 1/40 sec.
Hi Jerry, I like the palm leaf effect. pretty cool. Nice subject placement and I like the inclusion of the bud. My only nit is perhaps toning down the top of the lower leaf. Very nice image...
Thanks guys! Allen, I see what you mean about the leaf. I tried both a lower exposure and a vignette, which both looked good (they brought down the bright leaf), but a local adjustment may work also.
Very nice indeed Jerry, I have slight reservation over the sharpness of the butterfly - it doesn't look as sharp as the stem - does it meed a little more sharpening or is it possibly just not in perfect focus? I would consider removing the lower leaf completely for presentation purposes, I don't feel it makes a positive contribution.
Hi Jonathan, I had to save this at 80% quality, which may not have helped. Furthermore, the wing patterns of these BF's aren't that well defined. As their common name indicates, the wings truly have a paper like quality. Thanks for noticing, I'll check the original image for sharpness issues.
I agree that removing the lower leaf would give a much cleaner presentation.
Hi Jerry. I love the light and the interesting effect of the background! Also good comp and excellent DOF. I like Jonathan's suggestion about removing the lower leaf and you might also evict the little stem/leaf in the ULC. This is very nicely done!
Hey Jerry, most of what I was going to say was already said by Jon and Steve so I won't repeat. Only thing I'll add is you might consider cropping a sliver from the top or maybe instead doing a slight CW rotation to move the 'fly up in the frame.
Since I already had Photoshop open, I thought I take a quick stab at implementing what was talked about above. Slight CW rotation, removed lower leaf (poorly), selectively sharpened 'fy. Rotation got rid of leaf in ULC.
Hi Ken, you beat me to the repost, I have been abroad for a while and wasn't able to post. Here it is.
I chose to take some from the top, I thought the flower had too little room left on the right after rotation. I do like what your rotation did to the composition.
I did a little burning on the top leafs and the light spot in the BG.