Thanks for the comments, they are much appreciated!
Mark, I am considering a number of crops, I will check out your idea. My first reaction is that this is simply how I framed it based on my delight of finding such a pretty creature in my garden, so I'd like to keep that context for myself. But I do appreciate constructive suggestions such as yours. I have considered cropping below the lone blossom at top left.
Naknak, I took some others shots with shallower DOF, this is just the first I threw on the scanner. I did do some with more background blur.
By the way, I think we are a few weeks early with this moth (we were also very early with that gap-toothed smiling dragonfly I posted some weeks back). Based on the bugs, I have planted my whole veggie garden a month early, and so far so good.
I think this moth is in the saturnidii family. I claim that velvia nailed the colours very, very accurately. The light was very close to 5000K. I think there were a few high clouds that diffused the light just enough to save the range. I was very tempted to do this on astia, but velvia was already out of the fridge, so....
Thanks again for the comments. The only suggestion I won't consider is to put a pin through the creature and collect it ;