Thanks, Whiskeyman. Careful what you wish for, you may be disappointed. How did I capture this?
1. I sat in my chair on the deck and made sure I had my cigar, bourbon, and camera ready.
2. I saw the hummingbird moth come to the petunia pots we have along the deck for them, butterflies, and hummingbirds, so I put the cigar down and picked the camera up.
3. I moved the chair back 6 inches because the 500mm lens wouldn't focus close enough (I was looking for birds).
4. I ramped up the shutter speed and just waited for the moth to move into spots I could see it and unleashed 10 fps on it.
I probably fired off 200 shots between it and a butterfly and got easily have 5 others as good as this and another 10 that I would have been thrilled with at other times. I've stopped using zooms for wildlife unless I have no choice in the situation. When I can handhold a 500mm pf while relaxing on a deck and get results like this why would I?
This has been run through my 3 step post-processing routine of Topaz Denoise AI, Camera Raw, and Topaz Adjust AI. Each stage adds a touch of clarity with Adjust really defining the details you see here...
Out Of Camera:
View attachment 342285
Topaz DeNoise AI:
View attachment 342286
Camera Raw:
View attachment 342287
Topaz Adjust AI:
View attachment 342288
Adjust AI has all the components of the Camera Raw Basic section, but its power is in the more defined Texture and Clarity sections that go beyond the two sliders that ACR have. I only use those sections and the Sharpen slider. You have to be very judicious in using them and they take some getting used to, but I have gotten so many more comments like yours since adopting this workflow than I did prior when I'd usually overprocess trying to achieve the same effect.