-- Jan van Bodegraven (janvnbdg@mandic.com.br), August 06, 1998

Answers

A beautiful situation that just misses as a very nice photo due to the harsh lighting. I wonder if you took advantage of the insect's imobility to photograph just the water droplets on part of the wing? The is a potentially great abstract there, but again the excessive contrast detracts somewhat, less though, than it does from the whole image.

BTW, I've been told that for butterfly photos absolutely sharp antennae are critical for identification.

Frank

-- Frank Kolwicz (bb389@lafn.org), August 06, 1998.

Wow - certainly the most amazing butterfly photo I have seen. Was it alive? As an image I am a little bothered by the diagonally divided background. If this were an arrangement (dead butterfly on dead leaf) it could be improved. Nevertheless very impressive.

-- (andreas@physio.unr.edu), August 07, 1998.

I also think this image would look good as an abstract. As it is, the composition looks rather flat and unnatural. What is the butterfly standing on?

Cropping to just a portion of the wing with orange patches, and including the ragged left and bottom edges, would give a very interesting abstract, IMHO.

-- Steve Leroux (steve@bigadventures.com), August 07, 1998.

Jan, I like this shot a lot. The water droplets really make it for me. Any more details? Was this natural light? As to identification, don't know the species, but this is clearly a lycaenid of some sort (a hairstreak) which appears to have had the rear portions of the hindwings symmetrically clipped off, probably by a bird's beak. They have eyespots and little tendrils back there that are supposed to make the back of the wing look like a head, directing predator attacks away from the real head. Looks like it worked. Very well done.

-- Peter May (peter.may@stetson.edu), August 07, 1998.

Jan- This is a really nice shot. I'm assuming that this guy is dead though, right? I'm a little bothered by the washed out area of the butterfly's body. But, that might be my monitor also... Nathan

-- Nathan Foster (nfoster@umich.edu), August 07, 1998.

Thanks for all the input so far. This was taken before sunrise, with a Canon Elan II + 100 macro + flash + tripod on Ektachrome 64, aprox. life size. This he or she (?) wasn't dead at all, it was just waiting for sunlight to hit it's wings and dry the dew enabling it to get up, position it's wings in the sun, gain energy, and eventually fly away. Some of the answers made me rethink the natural light version, which i uploaded as "http://pessoal.mandic.com.br/janvnbdg/dew2.JPG". Although it lacks the contrast of the flash version it shows more of the leave, and does indeed appear much more natural.

-- Jan van Bodegraven (janvnbdg@mandic.com.br), August 07, 1998.

Interesting! If you could digitally remove the butterfly from your photo taken without flash and paste this one (taken with flash) into it instead, you had the best of both worlds and a magnificant photo! Of course it wouldn't meet the purist's standards... oh well...

-- (andreas@physio.unr.edu), August 08, 1998.

Maybe you could've gotten the 'best of both worlds' in the field by using fill flash, exposing for the natural light and adding just a bit of flash (-2 stops or something) to get the highlights and tweak the colours? This has worked quite well for me (sometimes).

-- Elbert-Jan Achterberg (achterberg@northernlight.nl), August 10, 1998.

This would be an excellent photo with better lighting. As it is, it is merely a good amatuer effort, but nothing special. Lighting is the single most important element in a photo, and if the lighting isn't right the rest doesn't matter. If there is not enough sunlight, you'll need a big softbox and a better flash. Easy? Nope. But that's what separates the good photos from the excellent photos.

-- Darron Spohn (sspohn@concentric.net), August 11, 1998.

I think it's an exceptional photograph. Because of the subject, the composition, and - well, you were there and that's the first requirement for a good photo. As for the technicals, consider trying a ring flash.

-- Jana Mullerova (jam@terma.com), August 13, 1998.

This picture seems to sollicit a lot of comments and I cannot resist. I think the background is too dark and it seems to 'chop off' the rear end of the butterfly. The flash introduced such contrast that it took away the pre-dawn atmosphere. That's mainly where this picture failed IMO. The long-exposure image without flash works much better, but is somewhat too dark.

-- Albin Hunia (hunia@dlg.agro.nl), August 13, 1998.

My vote is for the flash version better. The flash gives the impression of early morning light, and certainly creates a more dynamic impression. The butterfly is also positioned better in the flash image, in the lower, left corner. The light streams over the beautiful texture of the leaf before reaching the butterfly and dew droplets on it, before quickly fading to black at the edge of the frame.

The natural light version is rather dull, with the butterfly centered in the frame. It loses the benefit of the strong textures of the leaf or dew droplets. The centered subject gives too much room to the dull background to the bottom and left of the butterfly.

-- Joe Boyd (boydjw@traveller.com), August 20, 1998.