Nice weather for butterflies.... C&C Please

fatmikey916 · Apr 26, 2012

1.

DSC_0081(5) by fatmikey916, on Flickr

2.

DSC_0083(2) by fatmikey916, on Flickr

3.

DSC_0099(2) by fatmikey916, on Flickr

A few extras from the same trip

4.

DSC_0017(2) by fatmikey916, on Flickr

5.

DSC_0137(2) by fatmikey916, on Flickr

Bo4key · Apr 26, 2012

I like the idea of the wide angle crops of the first three. What I don't like are the centre compositions. The first is definitely the strongest and has great colour. I could probably benefit from a bump in exposure or some fill light to bring out the colour more.

Khaelbee · Apr 26, 2012

I love the tree on the edge of the cliff... that was a sweet find. I agree with the post above me, first picture was definitely the best but could have used a fill to pop up the butterfly. sweet shot though, they aren't the easiest creatures to photograph...

fatmikey916 · Apr 27, 2012

Thanks for the tips guys. I agree the first is my personal favorite out of them. Ill have to try fill flash next time im out. Even though those damn butterflies are fairly quick haha.

Joel_W · Apr 27, 2012

I'm going to go the other way about the wide angle crops. They just don't seem the way I would opt to go with Butterflies as the main subject. You're limiting their importance by including way too much needless background. Picture #1 is my personal favorite out of the three butterfly pictures. Nice overall composition, but it would be just that much stronger without all that needless space to the right of the Butterfly. Crop off about 1/2 of it. I would also crop the left side to just the outside edge of the flower bud. Picture #2 has two major issues. The 1st is the stem that is right in front of the Butterfly. That alone just kills it. The 2nd is that you centered the Butterfly dead center. There is no real interest other then "here's a great close up". Nothing wrong with that, as many of the macro insect pictures I see here are exactly like that. Picture #3 also has the Butterfly dead center, why? Crop off all of the vast dead space to the right of the rock, and you have a really solid composition.

Love the tree shot for it's uniqueness. I really took a good long look at it. The exposure is just dead on, which rich yet realistic colors. My only concern is that you crowded the tree into the frame. Since you chose to have the tree in the center I would have left the same amount of space before the tree as after it. As it stands now, you clipped the left side needlessly.

Being a floral nut, I really love picture #5. Solid composition and dead on exposure. Really well done.