The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
This is not exactly a trophy animal. The Painted Lady is one of the most widespread butterflies in the world, and sometimes they migrate in the millions. But, on the positive side, the Painted Lady sports one of the coolest “furry” bodies in the butterfly realm. These “setae” are present even more thickly in the caterpillar.
Painted Ladies are fast and erratic flyers; however, in my neighborhood, they are usually skulking in thick bushes.
Specific Feedback
I am interested in all comments
Technical Details
OM System OM-1 Mk 2 150mm 1/5000 F5.6 ISO 2500
Critique Template
Use of the template is optional, but it can help spark ideas.
@Gill_Vanderlip
Hi, Gill - the new software easily handles ISO’s up to (at least) 12,000.
Give it a try with their free trial: Try DxO PureRAW for free
Have fun! It has rescued many older, noisy images of mine..
A very fine image, Russ. It looks like you had nicely muted light which really did a nice job of keeping the background from being distracting and you absolutely nailed the butterfly.
Hi Dennis. I will try to respond to your comment about the background, and I hope I make at least a little sense. Here in the Sonora Desert we hardly ever have a muted sky. Generally the sunlight is seriously intense. Therefore, one is almost forced to process the subject and the background separately.
My current photographic interest is insects in flight. In these photographs, the background is never predictable and is often very messy. Another reason why one virtually has to process the background separately.
I first make a very careful selection of the subject and then run a macro which creates two groups of adjustment layers: one group for the subject (referred to as the foreground) and one group for the background. The macro makes use of the built-in masks of the adjustment layers. You can see those masks in the screen capture below.
By the way, the word “weighted” means that that particular adjustment layer will be blended in the luminosity mode. The other adjustment layers are blended in the normal mode.
Of course, you can add other adjustment layers to these groups, as needed.
Well, that was probably clear as mud! In any event, here’s a screen capture of the two groups of adjustment layers in Affinity Photo 2.
Hi Russ. Not too obscure. I do mostly bird photography and almost always separate the bird from the background. And I’m in the Pacific NW where we often have overcast skies. I’ve never formalized a process for the background so yours looks interesting.
Russ, this is a fine catch on this Painted Lady. They do move a lot, so getting a clean shot is a challenge that you’ve handled well. I would suggest that you think about moving her away from the center of the frame. A centered subject gets maximum attention, but creates a static view. The spread wing view looks good.
Excellent, Russ. I don’t have the red spot (yet) but I really must try ProCap with butterflies. I’ll try getting a shot of open wings from below too, one of these days - with different BG considerations!
Well taken.
