I was at the local wildlife refuge shooting egrets and herons when I saw this butterfly. I had only my 100-400 mm lens with me. I had to back up to over 5 ft. so the lens could focus. I liked the lighting and the colors in the image. I cropped the image to get the butterfly in a better position. I had no more room on the left.
Nicholas, I meant to mention the other day, that if you did have a lens like the 100-400 mm, you can grab some good close-ups with it while waiting to get your macro lens. I like the composition and colors in this. When I bring the image up large, I am seeing some out focus in the butterfly’s eyes, which is most unfortunate. The flower is tack sharp, so I’m thinking that it was a slight miss on the focus point at the time you pushed the shutter. That can easily happen using a long lens, handheld on something so tiny and with just a short distance between the “subject” and the flower or whatever else that is very close by. In a case like this, I usually try to have my camera set to high speed to up my chances that one shot will be sharp exactly where I want it, which in this case would be the eyes. If you did do that, you might look back and see if any of the other shots are a bit sharper on the eyes. The brighter leaves in the background would need toning down, I think, and that one leaf at the bottom is a bit distracting, so you might could try a horizontal crop. Hope that helps. Looking forward to more of your macro shots!
Thanks for the suggestions Shirley. I’ll have to try some of those.
Nicholas, The eyes are nice and sharp on this one. That is the luxury of shooting high speed sometimes, we may have missed the shot otherwise (I missed it more than I would like admit). I love the angle of the butterfly to the flower. On my monitor, it does seem a bit dark, especially on the flower itself. Maybe some dodging and burning can improve this shot even more. I am so glad that you did have a shot that the eyes are sharp in focus.
Thanks again Shirley. I do have a tendency to process my images a little dark for some reason. I do have to learn how to dodge and burn.
1 Like
Nicholas, these are fine views of this Tiger Swallowtail with the semi-backlighting setting off both the butterfly and the flower very well. Getting the eyes sharp in a close-up view like these is always a challenge. In your first shot, the nice glow of the BF, flower and leaf would let you get away with a smallish print (say up to 8x10). The second version has the BF’s head nicely sharp as well as the flower. You may be able to bring up the brightness with the exposure slider, just keep an eye on the brightest bits on the flower head, so they don’t get much brighter than they already are.
Thanks for your help Mark.