Morning Flight

[raptor84]

I do not post here very often so here goes. Taken together with my recent macro outing I wanted to try something different. I took this moth with and without fill flash and liked the results of the more shadowed one more. I guess I wanted to show the moth getting ready to take off for the first time in the morning after its wings had dried form all the condensed water last night. I have received comments about how the blade in the b/g was distracting but I felt it provided a nice contrast to the wing. Any further comments/suggestion on how this can be improved or taken better are appreciated.

 

[eikin]

compositionally good, in terms of the placement of leaves with respect to the subject and the dark background, though i would prefer the branch in the background to be cloned away for clarity of form in the picture. exposure wise, filling in a little bit of light on the subject would help bring out more definition of the subject's details.

 

[raptor84]

Thanks eikin. I guess the branch near the bottom does break the leading line that the leaf makes. Didnt notice that before I was hoping that the light shining off the top of the moth would have been enough to hint of the overall shape and definition. Will take note and try again in the future.

 

[sumball]

I would like to compose it a little bit wider showing the whole blade of the leaf.

By the way, it is a butterfly instead of a moth. And I believe that it was having sun bath...

 

[raptor84]

I would like to compose it a little bit wider showing the whole blade of the leaf.

By the way, it is a butterfly instead of a moth. And I believe that it was having sun bath...

I think if it was wider the butterfly might not be significant enough in the composition though. I can roughy envision it with the whole leaf with the tapered tip making a nice end point to the end of the frame..

 

[XiaoMiaoWang]

The butterfly could have been bigger (but if you wanted to show scale on the other hand, you could choose to stoop down on the butterfly's level and shoot it) and exposure wise, the butterfly's wings should have been more properly exposed (i.e: brighter), but that can be easily fixed with PS.

 

[raptor84]

The butterfly could have been bigger (but if you wanted to show scale on the other hand, you could choose to stoop down on the butterfly's level and shoot it) and exposure wise, the butterfly's wings should have been more properly exposed (i.e: brighter), but that can be easily fixed with PS.

I think if i went down or closer the leading line that the leaf creates would not have quite the same effect as the leaf would become one thin line. I wonder how It can be composed if i went in closer... The exposure thing was mentioned earlier so yea i gotta take note of that. Thanks for the comments

 

[Liew]

you're using spot metering?

the leaf at the bg is too bright therefore taking most of the attention away.

 

[raptor84]

you're using spot metering?

the leaf at the bg is too bright therefore taking most of the attention away.

yea it was mentioned in my first post about how I felt the bright leaf provided a contrast. I used center weighted and If it was exposed for the background i would be forced to use the fill flash which IMHO might have killed of the nice natural warm lighting. I guess I could have bracketed the shot and do some PS work to solve this issue..