Plumage
by amsmyth

Comment by Harz_Joerg:
Hi Anne;

I do have to admit that I didn't vote your image very high: I'm not so much a flower fan. But that's my personal view and not important when discussing an image with respect to composition and technique.

What I really like here is how you worked with the light, the colors and the background: the variation of blues is great and putting the yellow flowers in the back adds a nice contra-point (I hope this term makes sense in English). I like the reddish-brown parts of the background too. Only the bright part at the very upper left disturb me a bit: the light does come from the right side (at least for the foreground) and thus one gets surprised when seeing a bright region on the left.
I think that the exposure is OK, although it might appear a little dark. But I tried to adjust the levels and then the colours do not turn out as good as they are right now. I do think that some commenter saw it as being too dark was because the left part of the flower with the orange portion (which is somehow the focal point) is a bit too dark. However, the right part of the flower is on the bright side already. Maybe the flower should have been turned a bit.
Regarding the composition of the foreground I have to say that I do not like the crop at the top: that part of the bottom leaf of the flower is cropped away is fine and do not disturb me, but the cutting of the upper leafs makes the image unbalanced.
I do not know if this always holds, but I would say that one should avoid to crop the main object of an image on two opposite sides. If it is cut at two adjacent sides it's not so problematic.
Technically, i.e. regarding the noise, the image is a lot better than others we discussed. However, the file size is still rather small: 35 kB is a bit more than 20% of the allowed file size.
The sharpness is fine, although one could sharpen the image more without loss in quality (i.e. production of noise, too bright edges). However, more sharpening would reduce the softness produced by the subtle variation of the foreground colours.

Jörg

Mittens
by amsmyth

Comment by moodville:
The texture and the lighting on the mittens are good, even some details in the fur at the top, but the background does not really compliment them well. It's far too busy and almost taking away the focus from the mittens, and there is an uncovered spot on the top left. Something plain or with texture would likely have helped it a lot.

Plumage
by amsmyth

Comment by HRoxas:
Very nice colors, beautiful photo.

Bugs and Botanicals
by amsmyth

Comment by Harz_Joerg:
Greetings from the Critique Club
Hi Anne,

Got you again :)

Initial thoughts/My opinion
Nice, unusual butterfly and unusual angle of view. Great DOF. Not very special though.

Content/Composition
I do like how you composed the image: the shallow angle of view makes the butterfly look unusual and thus interesting. Also that you picked a green bug that almost blends into the green and nicely blurred background was a got choice. Speaking of background: the vertical stripes in it disturb, what are they?
I do like how the leaf under the butterfly is in focus and how it is aligned relative to the bug.
What I do not like is that the right wingtip is cut: that reduces the feeling that the bug is "flying" on the background of the image. Here I do see a major problem of the image.

Camera work -technically
Well done regarding focus and white balance. Could be a little bit brighter though. As mentioned, DOF is well chosen.

Digital Processing - Technical
Also in this image I do see too much graininess, although ISO 100 should be OK. Part might be due to the small file size: it's just 50 KB instead of the 150. One suggestion: after you submitted your image, review it on the DPC-site and by right-clicking on it save it back to your hard disk and check the file size: if it is too low, decrease the compression factor until you use up the whole allowed space.
Overall, quality-wise it is not too good, because it is not really crisp on the bug.

Fits the challenge
Yes it does, but a Woow-factor is missing. The balance between the two things that go together is too much on the butterflies side and the botanicals serve more ore les only as background.

Good luck for your upcoming submissions

Plumage
by amsmyth

Comment by Mona:
Lovely light and I like it.

Plumage
by amsmyth

Comment by tammy:
absolutely gorgeous

Plumage
by amsmyth

Comment by Rasai:
If the photo had something with a soft focus in the foreground to indicate a 'Shallow Depth of Field' I would have given it another point.

Plumage
by amsmyth

Comment by neenee1999:
Another gorgeous floral shot, I never get tired of the well executed floral pictures, and this is certainly one of them, I love the color choice her, your lighting is great, the subtle lighting adds a sense of softness to this shot, congrats on a beautiful shot. 10

Plumage
by amsmyth

Comment by Dave Gordon:
Beautiful color and detail in the flowers, and a nicely out of focus background.

Plumage
by amsmyth

Comment by spectre013:
Nice colors, would have like to see a littme more light on the purple to bring out the color (7)