Quietly, quietly..

[FrankieP]

These little fellows were flitting around a friend's garden yesterday, barely pausing upon each flower long enough to unwind their nose hoses before leaving again. It was rather frustrating as even sitting still as stone I only had time for one shot each time they landed, thus focus isn't quite perfect, but trying to grab a shot of them in flight was crazy! I really would have liked their heads and bodies to be sharper, but I'm happy at least that they're not too fuzzy to be useless.

I'd like the white flowers to be less washed out, but turning down the highlights made it rather blah and both it and the butterfly lost their pristine brightness and just disappeared somewhat into the background. The high contrast kills some of the details but it's boring without it..

[aim54x]

Some great shots there Frankie, I have tried to do similar stuff it the past with little luck and friends getting bored and wanting to move onto the next set of flowers.

#1 is pretty good, there isnt much you can do with the bokeh with the 18-55 (a nicer lens will fix this)
#2 is good, but the blown out flower is a bit of a distraction.

Keep up the good work!

[FrankieP]

That jaggedy purple background in the first is distracting, isn't it! I wonder if Photoshop has some clever way of toning just that area down without affecting the saturation of the foreground....