Unlocker and I went to Whipsnade Zoo on Sunday (as I slightly mis-judged the opening hours of Ascott House!) And although the place is full of animals, I got carried away with trying to photograph butterflies in the new butterfly garden. As my "thing" is taking macro shots of flowers, I decided to test my skills on the pretty flighty little critters!

Here are my first attempts, all shot at 125 ISO at F6.3 (which I have now realised is not enough depth of field that close!) No PP except converting to jpg and resizing in Aperture.

C&C very welcome, as I would like to improve on this kind of photography and would like to go back to the garden at Whipsnade soon, before the butterfly season is over.

1. Peacock



2. Small White?



3. Painted Lady



4. Peacock



5. Red Admiral



6. Painted Lady



7. Painted Lady



8. Painted Lady



I was a little disappointed with chopping the top of the wings off on the white butterfly (shot 2) and soon learned from my mistake - dead chuffed with the detail in that one though - the white ones were hardly ever settling!

Thanks for looking, and your comments (in advance so make 'em good!)

Fiona

Hi Scott & welcome to the forum

Fiona

Yep, I'll be there (thanks sweetheart for answering on my behalf!) And I'll be walking too!! Of course, if it is tipping it down, might not want to walk round as I'm still a bit slow.

Fiona

Number 2 for me too!

The distortion reminds me of the effect from a fisheye lens. Don't fancy a dip in the water much though!

Fiona

aminstar, are you using the Tamron 90mm macro to shoot these? If you are I will seriously consider getting out a bowl and a water dropper at the weekend... especially if it keeps raining!

Great shots, as always, and thanks for your insight into how you achieve these shots... where's my tripod level...

Fiona

I completely agree, I know I'm still learning, and have a lot to learn. My K10D is more than enough for me for the time being.

Fiona

Hello and welcome, from another "not 100% mobile yet" photographer!

Fiona

I have to say that the last one is my favourite, the reflected light on the undercarriage, really shows of the craftsmenship of the people that built these planes.

Plus the fact I'm not a huge fan of flying plane shots!

I like these shots, the atmosphere that is created and the subtle lighting. The model (your fiancee I presume) looks almost nymph or fairy-like - I hope that's the kind of atmosphere you were going for!

I still would have composed the shots in portrait, I think you would have achieved the same feel. You could then have got a little closer to the subject maybe, and shown off the lingerie more - which I would imagine is priority with these shots.

But I still like them!

Mmm. I can't make up my mind... I think it's a bit of a marmite image, I really don't know. I wonder what your thinking behind this is John? When I was studying design at college we were always asked for the reasoning behind a particular design, to get a better understanding of it.

Was the post processing done to reflect Mark's personality/creative style or was it an experiment?

Just curious really. I can't say whether I like it or not as I haven't made up my mind yet , but it's definitely interesting!