Glowing Swallowtail

[Randy Stout]

This lovely butterfly was imaged yesterday at our local butterfly arboretum.  It was my first outing with the 70-180 Micro Nikkor.  Very interesting lens for this application, and the zooming flexibility was very helpful in working in the arboretum where you are quite limited in your positioning options because of crowds, barriers, etc.   I had no chance to get the butterfly parallel to my image plane, so worked to make the most of my limited DOF.

D500 70-180  at 130mm  f/11 1/60s  ISO 1000 handheld.  No tripods allowed.  R1C1.  There was a small amount of natural light coming in from high overhead, which helped him glow a bit.

cropped about 30% for composition.

Advice and comments always appreciated.  In particular , if anyone can give a positive ID on this butterfly, I would appreciate it.  I was told that it was a Queen Page, which as I looked it up later, is not correct.

Cheers

Randy

[Thomas G]

Nicely captured. I feel very positive about to invest some thought and make the very best shot out of a certain  situation. Which you did, IMHO.

[Randy Stout]

Thanks Thomas:

Appreciate your input!  I will keep working on it!

Cheers

Randy

[tommiejeep]

Randy,  I really like the composition, light, dark background and dof.  Sorry no help on ID.  I normally only shoot butterflies with long lenses while waiting for birds.   Have fun with the lens and post some more 
Tom

[Frank Fremerey]

very pleasing, very perfect

[Peter Connan]

Beautiful!

[Mongo]

love the soft light, sharp/detailed upper body and mellow background. One of the standouts is the unique perspective of this image which portrays the subject from an angle not often seen and which is very appealing

[Kim Pilegaard]

Great picture! The flashlight works very well, maybe due to the supplementary daylight.

[Randy Stout]

Thanks everyone for your kind observations.

Hope to get back there one more time this season.

Cheers

Randy

[armando_m]

Gorgeous image