Butterflies

Fritillary, of some sort -- maybe a Great Spangled Fritillary (Speyeria cybele). They are pretty common in the yard right now.

Taken in very bright light with the sun almost directly overhead -- not so conducive to great photos.

Posted by Jacky on Tue, 09/16/14 13:32
[ Back to Index | Home | Previous Image | Next Image ]


Comments by Jacky on Tue, 09/16/14 13:35


Cabbage White (Pieris rapae), aka Small White of Small Cabbage White. They are very common. Again, very bright midday sun.




Comments by Jacky on Tue, 09/16/14 13:41


And, I think this is a Common Buckeye (Junonia coenia).


Comments by Jan Bjorklund on Tue, 09/16/14 13:42

I like both your butterfly compositions with the contrast between the butterflies and the diffused feel of the background bringing a 3D quality to each image. The veining is much more apparent in the wings of the cabbage butterfly and it is interesting to see this veining which is usually covered by the colors and patterning on most butterfly's wings.


Comments by Anna Permyakova on Tue, 09/16/14 13:48

Love the third shot. Very beautiful!


Comments by Chris R. Speaker on Tue, 09/16/14 14:37

I must agree that the light on the first one is terrible. Colors look almost garish to me. Maybe you could correct in post by desaturation a little? Hope you don't mind but I played with your image in PS a little.
Second is really beautiful and the third has very nice colors in it. Good ones on the last two.


Comments by Jacky on Tue, 09/16/14 16:57

Thanks for the feedback and comments, much appreciated.

@Chris, thanks for your example. I did actually desaturate some, as well as make some gamma and color temperature adjustments. My camera doesn't handle bright colors in bright light too well and I do try to compensate in post. Your example looks a bit too washed out to me (for example, that butterfly is indeed, bright orange). Perhaps something in-between, or maybe the first two are simply lost causes when it comes to technical merit.

I used a long lens, so I couldn't get close enough to use something to hold above the butterflies to diffuse the light. For most of my bug macro photography, I use a different camera/lens with much shorter focal length, so I'm able to get right on top of the bugs/spiders/whatever -- which allows me to use a diffuser or shade to manipulate the light. Couldn't do that with these. Butterflies are pretty skittish though, in general, so I probably wouldn't have been able to get too close anyway. The solution, I suppose, is to wait for better light. Thanks again!


Comments by Maria Salvador on Wed, 09/17/14 07:27

I found them all beautiful!


Comments by Sandi MacDonald on Wed, 09/17/14 11:20

The OP butterfly is very pretty. Too bad about the lighting but I do like the comp. The common buckeye is pretty too...;-)


Comments by Linda Frey on Wed, 09/17/14 15:28

A nice variety of butterflies in your yard. I'm lucky to get some of the cabbage butterflies.


Comments by Jacky on Thu, 09/18/14 01:08

Thanks, Linda, Sandy, Maria, Chris, Anna and Jan. I appreciate the comments and feedback.

@Chris: I was just now looking at photocritique on my iPad and I take back some of what I said. My OP and the next looks pretty oversaturated/garish even after my manipulations. Apparently I need to calibrate the monitor on my desktop.