Lynn’s gardening is paying off again this spring with lots of blooming flowers.  And once more, they’ve attracted some lovely visitors. I glanced out our back window last week, saw some motion and quickly grabbed a camera.

Swallowtail; 105mm, f/6.3, 1/2000 sec @ ISO 1600

I made about 30 frames in the short time I followed it around. I think this one’s the best.  I set my aperture pretty wide – to get a fast shutter speed and freeze motion in flight,  and also to blur the background. I do like the background, but the depth of field is just a bit too shallow – causing the tips of the wings to blur.

I tried using a new piece of software called Topaz Sharpen AI to reduce the wingtip blur.  You’ll find lots of info about it on the web, so I won’t get into details here.  I’m pleased with how it works – it did a good job sharpening this, especially around the flower and the butterfly’s head and body.  And it actually sharpened the wingtips some, although it couldn’t completely remove the blur.  It’s very CPU intensive, so I won’t use it all the time, but I’ll keep it around just in case.

The real fix for the wingtip blur is to make another photo.  I’ll keep watching for more back yard visitors.

You can click on the image to see a larger version on Flickr.  Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Now – go make some photos!

©2019, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved