www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

Felix wrote:
In July, how about banning 'Butterflies on dog turds'?
Felix.

Yeah - but are fox turds OK?

Yep, if someone can come up with something that we haven't seen a hundred times before. Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawn.

Agreed about birds, fingers, and dog turds.

For one season we could do the family limited category's, Whites, Browns, Skippers, Fritillaries, Lycaenidae ( Blues, Coppers, Duke and Hairstreaks ) and Nymphalidae excluding Browns and Fritillaries, or is there a better way to sort 6 category's.

Regards Gruditch

Seeing as some folks are having a moan I'd like to join in (whilst remaining on topic).

Do you think it might be possible to include a few categories where bokeh is not a prerequisite to getting a good rating? Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a nice blurry background as much as the next person, but when we get the same kinds of images over and over and over again it all becomes a trifle stale.

I'd like to see more photos where the subject can be seen in a more meaningful context. Too often we get beautiful images which somehow fail to convey a proper sense of presence or give the subjects the dignity which they deserve.

There's almost a parallel to be drawn between the pin-sharp butterfly images we see today and the specimens pinned to the mounting board in the collections of yesteryear.

Besides, it ought not be about just who has the longest lens. Rant over...

Celery
It seems you are not asking for a new category, but for people to change the criteria by which they judge the photographs.
Good luck with that then

celery wrote:Do you think it might be possible to include a few categories where bokeh is not a prerequisite to getting a good rating?

Members vote however they like, blurred backgrounds or otherwise, so this comment doesn't really make sense.

The only suggestion I have is to introduce 2 possible categories to address this:

1. Butterflies in their environment.

2. Shoddy photos

Cheers,

- Pete

I'm always ready to enter a shoddy photo into any of the categories that might get chosen...

Pete Eeles wrote:The only suggestion I have is to introduce 2 possible categories to address this:

1. Butterflies in their environment.

2. Shoddy photos

I am encouraged by this new category.

I understand what Celery says - the "butterfly on a stick", as I have heard it called!
And if you are printing for a larger size than for the Web, then there is more room in the composition to consider something other than the butterfly.
In a shot designed for A3 the butterfly may appear very small when displayed at 150mm x100mm for the Web.
Macro-work is designed to isolate the butterfly (with such a narrow d-o-f) against the background; those are the scale-perfect shots that people have voted for.

So, does celery suggest zooms and telephoto's-only as a category to get his type of shot

Shoddy photos - we can all win now!
N

A couple of suggestions that illustrate the mood of the photographer at the time of taking the picture:

1. Happy, at-one-with-nature mood.

2. Grumpy mood

Very difficult to achieve. But a grumpy mood could for example be the prize cabbages decimated by Large White caterpillars.

Joyous mood might be a child skipping through a meadow full of Marbled Whites that fill the air like so many snowflakes (I have actually seen that - well it was a contended adult).

Your limit is your imagination.

Jack

Do you think it might be possible to include a few categories where bokeh is not a prerequisite to getting a good rating?

I had visions of a sort of scratch 'n sniff photo-gallery but then I thought of the fox and the dog and realised that there would be no advantage in inhaling the bouquet

Just for the record, I stopped rating the photo competitions (and therefore entering them, as its unfair to enter and not rate) precisely because all the best photographers were going for this blurry, pastel background effect, which I find actively unattractive - almost claustrophobic. No moan or rant or sour grapes or fisticuffs - just my subjective opinion. For me it's a shame that obviously great photographers, with great cameras, devote so much talent to isolating butterflies from their environments and producing what I find to be sterile pictures.

Guy

I reckon, best wide angle could be good. I've seen some really nice shots on here in the past that have the butterfly as the main subject, but also show a load of typical habitat. I know you have to get close, and that's not easy, but stick the camera on f22, with no more than a 35mm lens on, creep in close and low, and BINGO. Less than 35mm, now that's a challenge.
I believe i have seen some of Guy's in this vein.

These are photography competitions, In natural history photography, and especially in macro photography, a messy, busy, cluttered background makes for an undesirable image.

Regards Gruditch

padfield wrote:Just for the record, I stopped rating the photo competitions (and therefore entering them, as its unfair to enter and not rate) precisely because all the best photographers were going for this blurry, pastel background effect, which I find actively unattractive - almost claustrophobic. No moan or rant or sour grapes or fisticuffs - just my subjective opinion. For me it's a shame that obviously great photographers, with great cameras, devote so much talent to isolating butterflies from their environments and producing what I find to be sterile pictures.

Guy

So you were just being kind to me and Paul, when we had "cleaned" the backgrounds of some of our pictures, by saying it made no difference to you, since all you looked at was the butterfly!
Thanks for not hurting our feelings!

These are photography competitions, In natural history photography, and especially in macro photography, a messy, busy, cluttered background makes for an undesirable image.

With true macro, you are dead right, but i spent all of last season with a 300mm f4, so i'm not convinced that you need only a macro lens to shoot butterflies. I suppose varying your shots is a good idea, as with any branch of photography. We dont want to get in a 'bokeh rut' do we.

What??? Spend all this season with a 28mm,,,,,, um! I've got nothing under 105mm.

NickB wrote:So you were just being kind to me and Paul, when we had "cleaned" the backgrounds of some of our pictures, by saying it made no difference to you, since all you looked at was the butterfly!
Thanks for not hurting our feelings!

Probably! I'm a very kind person!

I really don't have an axe to grind. I just found it problematic that when I was rating pictures those I found technically 'the best' and the most skilful - even the most 'artistic' - were very often pictures I didn't actually like. For me the context is part of the butterfly. In the end I found it impossible to rate the pictures.

Guy

Zonda wrote: i spent all of last season with a 300mm f4, so i'm not convinced that you need only a macro lens to shoot butterflies

I do a lot of my butterfly work with a 400mm lens, but the object of the exercise is still the same. To produce a butterfly image without a distracting, unappealing backdrop, but at 400mm you have less chance of spooking the subject. I do try to add plant interest whenever possible, but only if its not going to be detrimental to the overall image.

Regards Gruditch

celery wrote:There's almost a parallel to be drawn between the pin-sharp butterfly images we see today and the specimens pinned to the mounting board in the collections of yesteryear.

There is indeed a direct parallel Celery..!

And I suspect that this is where Guy is coming from.

One the one hand there are photographs for a photographic competition where artistic merit and technical ability are paramount, and probably the elements upon which such photographs are judged.

And then there are the photographs that are ideal for the species albums; those that will form a photographic reference collection exactly as our illustrious forebears did with actual set specimens. This is where 'data' (ie. date, locality etc. not exif data) is all important. Without it a photograph of a butterfly is nothing more than a work of art and has no scientific value. Such photographs have no worth in the species albums no matter how technically brilliant they may be.

I am not suggesting that never the twain shall meet, however, there are two distinct types of photograph required from photographers for a site such as this.

Felix.

Looks like a challenge to the photographers on here!

So maybe we DO need that category "Butterflies AND/or IN their environment"?
N