Butterfly on wild mallow

Critiques [Translate]

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• jmirah (4687)
• [2007-08-12 3:09]

Hi Theologos,
Very nice capture with great color...Outstanding lighting that shows through the wings and accents the detail...Very well done...

TFS
Jim

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• eqshannon (28595)
• [2007-08-12 6:07]

Very well done T. You learn and grow every day and teach us as you go along.

Bob

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• haraprasan (18842)
• [2007-08-13 0:28]

Hi Theologos,
A beautiful brimestone butterfly. Very nice details and colors with a very good POV. Thanks a lot for sharing.

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• Mana (18532)
• [2007-08-14 11:00]

Hi Theologos,
Splendid shot of this Brimstone with perfect backlight to give it a glow. Very neat and sharp image and I like its pose sucking nectar from the beautiful pink flower. Among the greens the subjects stand out well. Excellent POV and very nicely composed. Kudos.
TFS.
Sumon

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• snowfalken (1788)
• [2007-08-22 6:13]
• [+]

Hello Theologos,

A beautiful butterfly you've captured here! The Brimstone is similar to Gonepteryx cleopatra which I posted a few days ago.
This is a great picture to critique as I can address both its strengths and weaknesses. First, on composition: I appreciate the fact that you captured a perfect profile shooting perpendicularly on the butterfly's wings. This minimizes the chances to get parts of the subject out of the area of sharp focus. I would avoid placing the subject so close to the center of the frame and allow for a little more empty space in front of it so that the Brimstone can "breath". Having the light coming from behind creates an excellent translucence effect in the wings of the butterfly. The colors were well recorded and saturation and contrast well adjusted.
What I find distracting is the busy background that makes it difficult to isolate the subject from the surroundings. Stopping down the aperture is a great idea if you want to maximize the DOF but you must be careful when the background is so close to the subject as you might record more of it than you planned. The very small aperture only lets little light to pass through the lens so you need to lower the shutter speed so that it would be impossible to shoot handheld with accepting results. Also, at very small apertures, the light diffraction might cause some blurriness. This is very important if you need to crop heavily from your picture. Sharpening in PP might solve this problem partially. Here's what I would have done:
as 60 mm isn't such a long focal length (with a good enough DOF), I wouldn't have stopped down more than f/8. This would have allowed for a much faster shutter speed and wouldn't have caused blurriness due to light diffraction. The background would have been more blurred and the movement of the subject frozen.
The exposure is good, maybe with a small OE area on the Brimstone's body but no detail loss due to UE. Focus was achieved precisely on the subject.
I hope you don't take my critique negatively. It is my honest opinion and I guess it's better than just saying the picture is perfect. I hope there will be someone to find it useful and then I'll be happy.

With Friendly Regards,
Eddie