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Swallowtail With Repost

Gallery: Macro & Close-upPosted September 2, 2013106 views6 comments

July 17, 2013 Princeton, NJ

While helping our son move from the Princeton Theological Seminary student housing, we took our grandson for a walk and discovered this flowering bush with a dozen beautiful Swallowtails. I ran back to the apartment, go my camera and upon my return there was just this one. The colors appear to be much more vibrant than those I see in California.

Nikon D800 Nikkor 24-120mm lens 120mm 1/60 f/8 ISO1250 white balance auto

Processed in Lightroom, CS6 and NIK

Comments welcome

Comments

6 comments

Comment posted by scott lanz on September 2, 2013 at 11:23 PM

Certainly a pristine subject with beautiful color, especially the blue highlights, captured nicely in full wingspread, Patrick. It looks like you had less than favorable light resulting in some softness in the monarch. Monarchs constantly move, and it takes a fast ss to prevent any subject blur. You did well to get this one as sharp as you did at 1/60. Thanks for sharing.

Registered on November 14, 2003, 840 Posts, 12902 Comments

Comment posted by Daniel & Loana on September 3, 2013 at 3:43 PM

Wonderful colours, Patrick. The light conditions were not easy at all.
Well done!
D&L

Registered on October 7, 2008, 166 Posts, 3044 Comments

Comment posted by Mark Seaver on September 3, 2013 at 3:56 PM

Nice look at this Tiger Swallowtail. I see you took this in mid-July, that was when we had peak populations here in the mid-Atlantic and this one is a real beauty. I see the touch of softness especially in the left fore wing, but I'm more bothered by the overall darkness, looks like after sunset (and your settings add to that feeling). You can often increase the exposure in LR without blowing out the highlights and that might help here.

Registered on January 23, 2011, 1103 Posts, 17270 Comments

Comment posted by Patrick O'Healy on September 3, 2013 at 10:53 PM

Worked this image again with my coach, Keith Bauer. Added additional brightness, luminance and saturation to the wings, and burned the blacks. I hope you feel this improved the image.

Registered on March 13, 2011, 326 Posts, 1679 Comments

Comment posted by Mark Seaver on September 3, 2013 at 11:01 PM

The repost has a nice "pop". In my opinion, it didn't need any more saturation, but the difference is quite subtle and well done. The extra contrast between the blacks and yellows works very well.

Registered on January 23, 2011, 1103 Posts, 17270 Comments

Comment posted by Ian Wolfenden on September 5, 2013 at 11:51 AM

Think the repost was well worth doing, Patrick - that extra brightness lifts an already very appealing image, in which the dof is handled extremely well, given a very busy scene.

Registered on May 18, 2007, 1108 Posts, 7647 Comments