Awesome photos Paul. I am very :mrgreen: about the adders. I really, really want to see a snake in the wild. One would think that I would stumble across one given my many butterfly adventures - but it has never happened. Cheers Otep (an thanks David and Allan). Otep, its a bit late in the year to s...

Well Im certainly late to the party this season :oops: Ive not seen a lot of Butterfly action this year!! To be fair, i spent quite some time observing Adders through March/April, so Butterflies had to take a "backseat" this Spring. Had a great session yesterday though, an also put in some...

Spent about two and a half hours today ,and enjoyed an excellent walk at Dungeness,we decided to do a first brood Small Copper count I reckon the first brood is nearing its peak now ,and we counted a very respectable 389 ,they are now a very mixed bunch ,with some very tatty specimens but still hig...

Interesting stuff - thanks for sharing and I learned a couple of things. A very light touch I'd say - only a real hardliner could object to that process and the skill is definitely in the photography :) Cheers Chris, much appreciated, an sorry for not replying to this thread sooner :oops: Just post...

Another great season this year, with some nice butterfly images captured...roll on next Spring :wink: My 3 entries, all seen/photographed in/around Kent this year. Single images(no stacking) no cropping to any of these, just downsized the files. Handheld, Jpegs, 12 to 16 MP cameras used, also 500D c...

Mike has made some brilliant points above, an summed it up quite well(certainly better than i could have wrote). Just to further the topic of compositing, attached is an image (Black Hairstreak) that I created in which I took NONE of the source photographs (credit to Peter Eeles for most of it). The...

All seem well-balanced comments to me Paul and interesting stuff, thanks for taking the time to reply. I wouldn’t enter a composite into a competition, but probably would assume that focus stacking and selective editing on was what the others were likely to be doing. Regarding the UKbutterflies com...

I'm interested in the current etiquette around compositing photos. I'm learning photoshop just now and as an exercise I made the attached composite, but I'm not sure what are acceptable uses for it. I took the common blue picture, but it was originally on a thistle and I wanted an image with an ora...

Paul, I would indeed say that some of the competition winners used compositing to some extent, and as you say maybe fairly openly in some cases. But I didn't want to suggest it myself just in case I was underestimating in-camera skills :) I'm assuming a good compositor could make it undetectable, g...

A very interesting subject - i shall be interested to read member's opinions. Personally, I think that all but basic tweaking should be declared, and such images should absolutely not be countenanced in any competition. Tony M. I would agree with Tony M. above here. ^^^^^^^^^^^^...Unless the compet...

You bring up an interesting subject ChrisStamp..................go take a look at last years annual competition winning top 12 images :roll: ..........tell me what you think? One is clearly a composite, another is questionable?? I'll come back later on in the day, to answer/give my opinion on - &quo...

Steve Kirtley wrote: ↑Thu Nov 04, 2021 9:27 am Here's a couple from County Durham this September. One was very dark.

Nice looking butterflies there.

Some absolutely stunning images there. Common Blue females make a fascinating and attractive subject for study - every one is different. However, there are still a few brown ones around...CB8 190821.JPG(Apologies that I can't compete with the image quality above!) Cheers, Dave Thanks Dave. Like you...

Nice work, TM, and that last image of yours is of quite an extraordinary butterfly. When I was a kid in the late 70s, virtually all female Common Blues were brown, but these days a huge percentage are very blue, with some being so well-coloured it almost makes the guides of the period before 1980 o...

A lovely selection Paul! As you say, it does seem to have been a particularly fine year for female Common Blue colour forms. I don't think I have seen a plain brown one at all during 2021! My own personal favourite is the example shown below, not too far removed from your third image. Common Blue a...

Each year, im always on the look out for female Common Blues, showing nice colouration. This season/year ive done quite well, finding some lovely females. Locations in/around Kent. Images are not cropped. Cheers Paul. https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51219526485_17b670ba42_o.jpg Female Common Blu...

Lovely selection of fresh Cloudies, TM. You swept the board there! :mrgreen: Cheers for that David, i was well pleased. 6 hours+, out in the field. Cliffe Pools is a massive site, so you have to cover a lot of ground, chasing the swines!! The female helice was the least "flighty", but you...

After reading that the Clouded Yellow numbers were increasing at Cliffe Pools, Kent, i had to visit this location once more yesterday! I missed the Helice female last weekend, so needed to give it another shot. I would say that 10+ Clouded Yellow were seen (included the helice form). Females are now...

Nice images, TM, and 15 species in mid September is good going. :mrgreen: Cheers David, yes i guess 15 species was alright for this time of year. Im not sure i will return to that site this season now?...unless a few more CY's get reported there. :D Although i would think 3rd brood Wall Brown will ...

With reports of Clouded Yellows at Cliffe Pools in Kent (including 2 helice and mating activity) i had to visit this location last Sunday. The last time i was at Cliffe Pools, must have been at least a decade ago, when huge numbers of Clouded Yellow were seen on site!! Its a massive area, so hard to...