-- Dave Witten (dbwitten@intrex.net), October 03, 1998

Answers

Nice tight cropping, good format (vertical), exposure and color look fine. Improvements needed: the antennae of butterflies are important, they should be sharp and stand out well; the bright blotchy background distracts a bit (if you used fill flash, maybe the ratio to ambient should be in favor of darkening the bright patches); is that white object directly in front of the butterfly's head part of it's anatomy?.

Overall, pretty nice.

Frank

-- Frank Kolwicz (bb389@lafn.org), October 04, 1998.

Frank: Thanks for your comments. Yes, the white is part of the butterfly.

-- Dave Witten (dbwitten@intrex.net), October 04, 1998.

Dave, Very nice shot. These butterflies (a red-spotted purple, Limenitis astyanax), are very skittish and difficult to approach, so getting a frame-filling shot is no easy task. As we all know (or at least as some would have us believe), effort required to take a photogrpah means NOTHING; only the final results matter. All the same, you've captured this beast very well. The white object in front of his head is a maxillary palp that protects the coiled proboscis. The colors in the underwing spots are gorgeous. Peter

-- Peter May (peter.may@stetson.edu), October 05, 1998.