Lady killer and Flutterbye

[bloodhound31]

Hmmm...still practicing on full manual. It's great fun and I think I have the hang of it. (Thanks again Troy).

I really need that macro lens though. The only way to get these fella's is to get as close as I can, focus as best I can with a lens that's not really designed for it, then crop it afterwards.

Still, these critters ARE cute.

Baz.

[dpastern]

Barry - definitely some very nice improvements! You're doing grand. The butterfly shot is quite nice - very very well done!

Dave

[troypiggo]

The ladybird shot is a little blurry, what shutter speed was that? Might want to increase it.

The butterfly shot is quite nice, but the colours look a little funky. Not sure if that's chromatic aberration or something else in your post-processing.

Did you notice the little bonus in the butterfly shot? Tiny wasp?

So your exposures are looking ok. Now you need to practise your technique of sneaking up on them to get closer so you don't need to crop ;) You'll get much more detail and less noise if you do that.

My couple of tips for this:

- no sudden movements, especially when you've seen one and want to shoot it, resist the urge to suddenly lift the camera up because you're excited.

- make sure you don't cast a shadow on them. Most insects will buzz off if you throw a shadow.

- get down low, even if it means laying flat on your tummy in dewy grass

- take a shot from a reasonable distance to make sure you get something at least, keep camera at your eye and slowly move in closer taking shots every so often so you're getting shots progressively closer.

[bloodhound31]

Bewdy guys, good advice. I'll keep practicing. The butterfly was a little over processed I think. I did overexpose him in bright sunlight, but it was the sharpest frame I got in the series so I thought it worth rescuing with a bit of levels and a saturation adjust. I did have a slightly sharper lady beetle, but this was a much better composition I think. I would have liked to frame it lower, but just out of the diagonal right top, there is a very distracting green blob. I thought of cropping the left off it to the end of the leaf line, but the gap left is the perfect place to put my signature so it flows on from that line without distracting too much.

Cheers for the advice! Storing it all up top.

Baz.

[dpastern]

Baz - can you provide a unprocessed image of that Butterfly shot? I'd be curious to see it and have a crack at doing a repro if you don't mind.

Troy's advice is pretty much on the money.

Dave

PS I did notice the wasp Troy ;-) I don't want to over excite Baz!

[dpastern]

Baz - repro done and EMailed back to you. Enjoy!

Dave