Piers Blackett
October 2021 - Gulf Fritillary butterfly
Original
About the Image(s)
A Gulf Fritillary butterfly settled on a yellow flower with a dark background shaded by a pine tree. The photo was shot at 1/1600, f 6.3, 349 mm ISO 800. In post I denoised, and made minimal Lightroom adjustments, then rotated the image to a horizontal aspect with a slight diagonal slant to the nearest wing. The rotation required a content aware fill to maintain the eye on the one third intersection. The yellow petals came out flat and I failed to bring out texture with a CR brush and changes in contrast/exposure, so I cloned some lines in from another flower.
This round’s discussion is now closed!
10 comments posted
Hey, that fellow was in my yard yesterday! Lol! Very cool rotation technique. To my eye, the light on the flower is a bit too bright. Looks like it was shot at mid-day. A reflector or just your shadow over the flower would have helped soften the light and given more even lighting. Butterflies, generally, tolerate me moving all around and over them. Nice capture, Piers! Posted: 10/04/2021 05:29:29
Thanks for your suggestions Karen! In retrospect I used a matrix exposure mode causing the sensor to compensate towards overexposure, so spot-metering on the butterfly might have been better. Posted: 10/04/2021 10:43:02
I love the crop and rotate to produce this final view. It worked well.
I, too, have recently begun to use spot metering more often to tame the highlights. Sounds like that would be a good option.
Well done. Posted: 10/04/2021 15:12:26
I, too, have recently begun to use spot metering more often to tame the highlights. Sounds like that would be a good option.
Well done. Posted: 10/04/2021 15:12:26
Thanks. Yes, if the day looks like small foci of interest will predominate it could help to have spot metering preset within a custom option. Also I wonder if seeing the image with EVF in a mirrorless format would help - probably, but I'm not ready to go there yet. Posted: 10/04/2021 18:40:40
A great shot Piers and I like your post production treatment. Well done! Posted: 10/04/2021 20:13:52
Very impressed with your editing, especially with denoise. I think it really made the image pop by rotating it. As mentioned by the others, I do feel the yellow is a bit bright. Wonder if you could use the radial filter or graduated filter in Lightroom to tone in down. Posted: 10/06/2021 20:00:25
Thanks Shirley, I agree. The radial filter with some feather fitted well with a tilt and some fine tuning. Posted: 10/07/2021 16:23:14
Oops - perhaps I overdid it - but will try some more. Posted: 10/07/2021 16:24:20
This is terrific! I love the butterfly and am very unfamiliar with this one. I admire your abilities in post processing. the tilt was a brilliant idea. It really makes the image much more dramatic. I actually like the yellow of the flower full force. It is almost as if the yellow in the wing is reflecting the flowers strong coloring. That makes movement within the image which I like a great deal. Posted: 10/09/2021 14:27:24
Thanks for the observation - still struggling with exposure but the first one is as close as I can get it. Posted: 10/09/2021 16:55:16