Butterfly

[Overread]

Well the title really says it all
taken with canon 400D, sigma 150mm macro, 1.4*teleconverter, speedlite 580M2 and softbox

f14, ISO 200, 1/160sec
link to larger: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3415/3229335939_73fcc90441_o.jpg

but have I overdone the brightness/saturation and should I rotate it?

 

[Markw]

I dont think youve overdone it at all. Also, I saw that it says it's okay for me to edit your pics so I tried a rotation, and I think its best just the way it is. could be horizontal if we had more of the 'weed' in it though.

Mark

 

[Flower Child]

this may be a stupid question but i have seen many of these pictures on here, like this butterfly one, that has a solid background. is this natural in the picture or is it edited in. i really like this look and i would also liketo add your photo is beautiful. and i would like to know how you are getting it.

 

[Overread]

Thanks both!
As for the shot - well I am no master of lowkey shooting, I mostly get them by trial and error (or by complete surprise with macro) but there are a few things that I have worked out that are important components:

1) flash - you need flash to add light to the subject in the shot

2) fast shutter speed helps to reduce the amount of light entering the camera - ergo less change of getting light from the background

3) a big difference in distances - your subject wants to be close to the camera and in proportion, the background wants to be far off from the subject.

In the case of this image the background was very dark with some reddish haze from the background plants - some contrast boosting and lowing of the brightness in the background only helps to exaggerate the effect - adding light selectivly to the subject also helps. I have had (so far) one shot which was almost pure lowkey which was a dragonly resting on a highup stem - the background in that case was very far off and so no light got from it to the sensor

But like I said I am not the best to ask about this, but if you want more infro the effect is called lowkey (or low-key or low key) There is also the opposite which his highkey

 

[Flower Child]

thank you. i will definitly look into it.