More small Butterflies...

pathfinder

I have continued to chase the butterflies in my back yard, and I am seeing some smaller ones now.

I believe this is an Orange Sulphur



And this may be a Great Southern White




The Sedum is just about to blossum too.



Comments, criticisms or just plain rants encouraged as always :

gluwater

Nice shots Path. I am starting to get my hands dirty with Macro and have found that butterflies are not as easy to capture as I had thought. What lens to you use? Any extension tubes? Are these cropped or "as shot"? Wow, I have a lot of questions. I just got home from the Arboretum a couple minutes ago so hopefully I'll have some posts later tonight.

Good work on these I hope to see many more.

Nick

Khaos

Very nice.

pathfinder

gluwater wrote:

Nice shots Path. I am starting to get my hands dirty with Macro and have found that butterflies are not as easy to capture as I had thought. What lens to you use? Any extension tubes? Are these cropped or "as shot"? Wow, I have a lot of questions. I just got home from the Arboretum a couple minutes ago so hopefully I'll have some posts later tonight.

Good work on these I hope to see many more.

Nick

Thanks gluwater. Butterflies, like many flying insects, can be quite cooperative at times, and just frustrate the heck out of you at other times. And I can never predict which will be the case each time. Some butterlfies won't let me get closer than 6 feet - others just sit there an ignore the electronic flash going off in their face.

The lens I used is the Tamron 180mm macro - I have been pleased with it optically. I also have a12mm extension tube between it and the body - not always needed, but handy if I want to get even closer. It was not really needed for these shots.

These vary in cropping from almost full frame cropped to 4x5 ratio, to ones cropped by 50% or so. These are all shot in the wild, so to speak, not in a terrarium. Glad you enjoyed them. Let's see some of yours

GREAPER

I love the little yellow one Pathfinder.

I use to see those here, along with the little blue ones. This year I never see anything but the little white ones.

gluwater

Thanks for the info Path, I'm still wet behind the ears to this Macro/Photography/PP/life so all the info I can get helps. Today I was stalking a couple Monarchs and they wouldn't let me get within 10 feet of them, but just as I was getting frustrated a red Dragon landed next to me and kept me company. Here's a couple I have soo far, it's not much but I like them, plus I've only gone out a handful of times so far. Enjoy

All were taken with my new favorite lens Canon 100mm f/2.8
(click images for exif)

From early last week




I am trying to upload a couple more but it seems the server is bogged down because SM has been processing them for like 10 minutes already. I'll post some more in new threads throughout the week. Hope you like them.

Nick

Lord Vetinari

Excellent shots Pathfinder.
Colour on first pic looks slightly OTT on my monitor?

pathfinder

gluwater wrote:

Thanks for the info Path, I'm still wet behind the ears to this Macro/Photography/PP/life so all the info I can get helps. Today I was stalking a couple Monarchs and they wouldn't let me get within 10 feet of them, but just as I was getting frustrated a red Dragon landed next to me and kept me company. Here's a couple I have soo far, it's not much but I like them, plus I've only gone out a handful of times so far. Enjoy

All were taken with my new favorite lens Canon 100mm f/2.8
(click images for exif)

From early last week




I am trying to upload a couple more but it seems the server is bogged down because SM has been processing them for like 10 minutes already. I'll post some more in new threads throughout the week. Hope you like them.

Nick

These are just fine, Nick.

One suggestion for the second shot - I think you might consider cloning out the OOF green stems coming out of the butterflies back - Would not be too hard to do - might need alpha channel for the selection prior to cloning, but that would remove the green distraction and augment the nice black background you already have.

Welcome to macro world!! :

pathfinder

Lord Vetinari wrote:

Excellent shots Pathfinder.
Colour on first pic looks slightly OTT on my monitor?

You could be right LV. I saturated it some to bring out the eye colors - maybe I over did it a little, but it was pretty yellow to start with.