The Chinese Peacock (Papilio bianor) is one of the most beautiful Swallowtails in Korea. This one has just been nectaring on a glorytree (Clerodendrum trichotomum) along a woodland track. It can be seen from April to October.
All comments welcome.
Is this a composite: No
D500 + Tamron 150-600mm (@600mm)
f6.3 1/3200 ISO 3200 Flash
Topaz Denoise and Topaz Sharpen applied for good sharpness in-flight.
What a beautiful insect! And caught in the air too.
Awesome to get a butterfly in flight! Neat color!
Beautiful capture, Mike. Great detail in the butterfly and the OOF background sets it off very nicely.
Picks jaw up off the floor
Wow. That is a magnificent insect and a superb photo.
A real beauty, Mike. I don’t think I have ever seen one, so appreciate you posting. A great in flight capture with wonderful details in this colorful butterfly. Great shot.
WOW! Sorry I missed this one, but glad I found it – it’s gorgeous!! And to catch it in flight is wonderful! The plant it just left is beautiful but so nicely understated that it contributes without being a distraction.
@Diane_Miller The Swallowtails love the plant (actually quite a large bush). It has a great scent too.
Agree with all the other comments. A butterfly in flight is soooooooooooooo hard!
Hi Mike, a beautiful butterfly and nice in flight catch. Very hard to do. It really stands out wonderfully from the background. In the large version, I’m noticing what appears to be sharpening artifacts on the butterfly and some of the surrounding background - might want to take another look at that. A beautiful image.
Thanks @Allen_Sparks . As I applied Topaz Sharpen after Topaz Denoise, I thought I might get some glitches. I’d be very grateful if you could point out the 3 most glaring ones you noticed, as my untutored eye won’t spot them till then!
@Mike_Friel , I’m just noticing what appears to be a good bit of noise on the butterfly in the large version. I circled the noise next to the abdomen that appears to be part of the butterfly selection. I typically use Smart Sharpen in Photoshop with amount at 100%, radius starting at 0.7, noise reduction at 0, and the Remove option set at Gaussian Blur. If you want, you can email me the image before sharpening and noise reduction were applied and I can see if what I typically do gives a different result. My email is asparks306@bellsouth.net.
Mike: I’m late to this party but this is a terrific capture of a new butterfly for me. Exceptionally good work. 
>=))>
Mike the butterfly is spectacular and catching it cleanly in flight adds to the excellence. It’s also positioned well in the frame. In the largest view, I see things around many of the edges that look like they’re showing the optical limits of your lens. There’s no fix to those except limiting the display size. (As an example, look at the wing tip in the upper right. There’s a clean edge leading up to the branch, but the edge becomes blurred when the dark branch is behind it. Some of the issues may be 8 bit JPEG problems also, that you won’t see in a 16 bit file.)
Thank you @Mark_Seaver. There was definitely motion blur in the original. Perhaps I should have been happy with this, instead of going too far with the sharpening. Your input is really appreciated.
