Meadow Brown - Comments welcome

[Jon]

This was taken at a small aperture with flash


This one was at a wider aperture without flash, as the aperture was fairly wide there was little to clone to tidy up.



I quite like both but I am not sure which I prefer. I wonder if the wide aperture one is a little too tidy?? All comments welcome - I won't be offended.
Jon

[Fourwings]

Thats an excellent image Jon, the grass to the right of the Butterfly may be considered slightly distracting but that is a minor detail and could be cloned out easily enough if desired.

I prefer the bottom image myself, clean backgrounds provide no distraction from the main subject matter.

Colour rendition, fine detail, exposure, sharpness etc.... are all spot-on

Steve.

[matt_xyz]

I'm with Steve, Jon. I prefer cleaner backgrounds. There is a place for images which show insects within their environment, but it's a fine line. A cluttered background obviously detracts from the main subject.

Coincidentally, I uploaded the following Meadow Brown image on Monday. I intentionally shot this one at f5 in order to clean the background up.



Matt

[Ollie]

Got to agree with Steve and Matt on this, a clean background is always preferable to me. you have also shown the flower, which I think in the case of this image adds to it.
Roger

[WhiskyBottle]

The light OOF grass in the first pic is a major distraction for me. This is solved in the second pic.
However the back lighting in the second shot has highlighted the damaged wing which didn't show in the first pic
Perhaps large aperture with a bit of fill-flash

[almostnormal]

i like them both, but i do agree with the clean background, something i've never quite got the hang of. and i'm not sure a damaged wing detracts. i rather like it, gives the butterfly character!

[Jon]

Thanks everyone, it seems pretty clear that you all prefer the clean background. I wondered if anyone was going to say they preferred the one with the grass showing because it looked more natural.
I reckon all things considered I have to agree with you. In general I clone as little as possible, I also try not to crop too much but if needs be I do so. I get a buzz out of trying to show the image with as little manipulation as possible. I suppose there is still a little bit of the old 35mm transparency approach left in the memory bank!

Jon

[Lincs Yellowbelly]

I'm going to throw the cat amongst the pigeons here and say that i prefere the top image

Mainly due to the fact that the butterfly itself has great detail and depth of colours, which seem to have been taken out slightly by the flash in the bottom image.

[Dan Salter]

make that 2 cats lincs...

I think both pics are great ...and to be honest i dont dislike the slighty less plain background in pic one...i quite like the grass etc but i do feel the actually lighting and detail on the butterfly is far better in the first pic as lincs said.

Dan

[Cazzie]

I prefer the top one too, purely because you can see the veins detailed on the wings

I'm a complete novice when it comes to cameras and to me you're talking goobledegook when you say clone, f5 etc. lol! What does it all mean and how do you fuzz up the background like that to make the subject stand out? Is that some sort of editing you do after the shot has been taken?