Painted Lady Butterflies

Peanuts

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Well.. here are a few other attempts with my Canon Rebel XT! I am going to post 2, as I think both can be improved, so, now poitn in makign two posts ont eh same subject. I believe most of the info is the same for both

First
Speed: 1/400
F Numer: 13

Second
Speed: 1/500
F Numer: 5.6
(The bee was a total coindicence. didn't even see it until I loaded the pictures)

Should they be cropped differently? Any photoshop work needed? (If so, feel free to either tell me what to do, or do it yourself if you have the time/wish to)

Thanks again :D

Edit: Unfortunately, I deletd the p hotos off of where I put them originally, and did not save the 'pre-fixed' photos so, any viewers, please just look at teh bottom and tell me waht you think. :oops: sorry)
 
I like the second one better cuz you got the bee in there too and it gives the picture more life, and pehaps the color could use a little more brightness and/or contrast. Soundhow the butterfly doesnt seem vibrant enough. But it is still a good shot. it's hard to capture insects on film, anything not human really, cuz you cant prediect when they are gonna move. Can't tell you what a pain it it to take pictures of my cats...
 
I'm with Drama... exactly what he said about the life in the picture. I think that the first is bit soft.
 
Thank you very much for the replies Mentos and DramaDork. I can now see what you mean by the first oen not seemign sharp enough, and when I went into ph otoshop and tried 'sharpening' it, it seemed to look overly done and fake. (Obviously, I am also new at photoshop so... I have lots to work on :confused: )

Also when I added contrast tot he second, I found that everythign else int he picture seemed to 'pop' out more and the butterfly got lost among the flowers and background *shrug*. Any suggestions?

Hopefully, I will become brave enough to take shots outsdie fo flowers, insects, birds and my dog, and get out and take really unique photos. Oh well, each photo I take is a learning experience.

Thanks once again :D

Note: more critiques would be much appreciated, as I want to learn much mroe to imporve the pictures I take, and this can be done by the experienced people like you :D
 
allright let's see what i can pick out of my brain for this :)

yes, the first is a tad soft. which is slightly strange, since you used an autofocus camera that was set to f13. did you manual focus? it could use some sharpening in photoshop, and for that i suggest either doing unsharp mask for the large original image or making it small and doing sharpening manually by using the sharpening brush (it's the triangle thing in the palette) set to something like 15 (if the image is around 640x480 or so).

I actually disagree about the bee thing. It looks like what it is...a coincidence. In my opinion it actually detracts from the photo. If you have an original that doesnt have the bee, i would recommend using that one instead. That may be just me though (as others have proved). As for practical application, here is what i would suggest:

Use a vertical composition and get more of the flower stem, so that the flower and the butterfly seem to be more like the 'icing on the cake'. I like the composition of the first one better, it is more unique, and the second one is a little too centered, which isnt always bad, it's just not good necessarily. I would suggest that you shoot quite alot of pictures when you get to a subject like this, because it is hard to tell how they will turn out as you dont really have time to check each photo after you take them. For shooting flower shots and shots of brightly colored objects on a bright sunny day (even if you arent shooting in mid-day), i recommend getting something to shade the area you are shooting. It will make it darker, but it will give you a more diffused light with less harsh shadows, more pleasing midtones, and a better color saturation since the sun wont be bleaching out the colors. Congrats on the new camera btw!
 
Well, I took your suggestions and attempted to fix up the photos

Butterfly1.jpg

For this one I used the original image and used unsharp mask, and I beleive I boosted it up to 140% temporarily so it woudl show on the smaller image. Not sure if it makes a large difference on this smaller one, but it sure did improve the larger.

On the second I do have an almost identical picture without the bee, but the butterfly was bringing it's wings 'up' resulting in a harsh shadow that i couldn't fix up. So... this picture follow more alogn the guidelines of the vertical, and thought he colour of the butterfly, and the sharpness was not originally as good, I trie dmy best to improve it.

Butterfly3.jpg

(Once again, the ladybug in the background was coincidence, and I am not certain whether I like it or not... coudl probably easily be removed)

Once again. thanks
 
1st one is out of focus - not much to do to that. Out of focus images hurts my eyes.
 

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