Soft morning butterfly

Image Critiques Macro/Close-up Critiques
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image
image2048×1582 1.14 MB

New Version with Topaz Studio2 AI Clear Tool:

41-09
41-093132×2420 6.79 MB

What technical feedback would you like if any? Early morning light - best combo to get freeze action and least artifacts from high ISO?

What artistic feedback would you like if any? Liked the little bee in the flower as reference to size of butterfly, but it is also a distraction.

Pertinent technical details or techniques:

Nikon D500, 1/1250 sec, F5.6, ISO 900, 28-30mm Nikon lens at 300mm

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A very nice shot, EJ. I like how the butterfly and the flower are on a tilt to the left, making for a very nice composition. Nice soft background makes him stand out nicely. Early morning light is nice to miss out on the harshness of light and the deep shadows as the sun gets higher in the sky. The freeze action you obtained of the butterfly and the bee is from the shutter speed you used of 1/1250. Depending on how still your main subject was, you might could have lowered the shutter speed and lowered the noise. It is always a trade off. A fine shot though.

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3

Hi EJ, nicely composed - I like the placement of the butterfly in the frame. The bee adds a nice touch. Lowering the ISO would help with the noise depending on how big of a crop this was. Nice frame.

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4

Nice pose of the butterfly, and nice placement of the flower. The processing of color, exposure, contrast also looks good. The background is pleasingly OOF, while the keeping the subject pretty sharp. As the others noted, there is some noise visible in the background. With this much sunlight you did not need to be at ISO 900, you could have got away with a slower shutter speed than 1/1250. If you use photoshop, you could make selection of the background and run a Gaussian blur filter to remove noise, and paint it away from the butterfly.

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5

EJ: This is fine! I love the wing position, perch and the BG especially. I’m not all that enamored with the bee as it tends to pull my attention away from the main subject.

If I’m not mistaken, this is a postman butterfly. Was this taken in the wild? I’ve only seen them in butterfly houses. >=))>

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6

These are all around my house and flowers in Playa Flamingo, Costa Rica!

Thank you for your comments.

EJ

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7

EJ, the colors here are eye popping. The pose and framing look good, also. I especially like the details in the BF’s eye. While this would look good without the small fly, it does add a fun “surprise”. Reducing the noise would be a nice improvement that you may be able to improve in your processing.

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Several friends recommended so tools to augment the PS/LR package. After reading several of their reviews, I purchased the new Topaz Studio 2 package which has AI Clear.
Practicing with this program showed AMAZING results. I intend to take the butterfly and use the Clear and deNoising tools to rework this. I have posted the New “Clear” version under the original.

Thank your for your comments!

9

EJ, the redo shows a major improvement in the noise.

I’ve found that noise reduction adjustments in LR work quite well. While other tools may be better, I tend to go with minimum complexity. When I’m shooting “high speed” with my 7DII, I have the noise reduction in LR set to:
Luminance 60
Detail 50
Contrast 0
Color 40
Detail 50
Contrast 50

Settings: 1/2500 s, f/9, iso 6400
Before NR screen shot:
17%20AM

After NR scren shot
41%20AM

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