One Centemeter Butterfly

[yjoshi]

for people looking for those numbers:
Canon Rebel XS (1000d) with Sigma 70-300 apo-dg-macro lens
shot @ 300mm @ f/5.6, 1/125s, ISO 200, manual focus

For people looking for story:
believe me.. i am not kidding.. this butterfly was less than l centimeter wide (and its sitting on simple grass twigs!)

It was almost impossible to spot it in the flight but fortunately it settled down very close to the ground for a few mins... had to get down to it level in the dry & itchy soil (i can still feel the itch on my elbows!)... get as close as my 300mm focusing width can allow.. autofocus was making so much noise without anything big enough to focus that this guy would have been scared.. so manual focus!!

for people peeping into the dark-room
Post processing in GIMP (why pay or hack when you can do all for free!):
- UFRAW conversion,
- little crop (to get my rule-of-third and leading-lines)
- selective high-pass filter with masking,
- selective saturation, highlight recovery
- little cloning to remove distractions on the grass-leaf
- USM

Border / signature with FastStone Photo Resizer (can't live without it!)

Why entering it here?
Really want to know if there is anything that can be improved to make it look even better... my take this photo is good looking but not a "winner" material!! Any suggestions in terms or taking the photo or post processing will REALLY help!

[photog1107]

Compositionally, very nice, with the bending grass providing a nice diagonal line that is peaceful. The butterfly seems a bit soft to me and just a hair overexposed. Not sure if a diff PP would allow you to work on just the buttterfly as a layer and perhaps soften the exposure, add a touch of clarity, and sharpen it up. I am not a PP expert, but that is what I would try if I had the tools at hand.

Otherwise, a nice capture after all that work and patience!