A Chalkhill Blue (Polyommatus coridon) (and 'guest') in the morning light of a fresh summer meadow ... A different colour palette to a lot of my recent work intended to give a more subtle backdrop to the delicately coloured male ...
Sigma SD Quattro, Sigma 180mm Macro, F4.5, 1/40 sec., ISO 100
A larger view can be found
HERE.
Comments
10 comments@Mark, It would be possible to get a slightly larger view of the Butterfly but many things start to work against getting this kind of finish. As you know, moving closer to the subject the DOF gets thinner, so one needs to close the lens down more to keep the detail in the subject, especially if the wings are not 100% parallel to the camera. This makes it ever more difficult to separate foreground / subject / background - F6.3 or so is about the limit for this type of finish - Nevertheless, the Sigma 180mm Macro does a very very good job of this separation. A focus stack is away round the DOF limit of course, but this is not so easy with a BF that is not completely still
In terms of the image above though, my aim is to show the subject in relation to, but not dominated by, the light and its surroundings - and thus in a far from documentary fashion! The image above, for me, brings back memories of lying in the meadow in amongst the grass, with the smell of flowers, the last of the cool movements of air before first hints of the warm day to come as the sun begins to break the horizon, the feeling that, having got up at 4:30 AM to get to the location well before sunrise, Nature is playing out the beauty of the breaking of a new day just for us ... and that's the feeling i wanted to transport with the image.
Very masterful image - hope to see many more.
Sandy
Sandy