Nicest things to do is finding a butterfly

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I love love love monarch butterflies! A few years ago I had one land on my finger for about 30 seconds, it was a magical feeling. Here is a photo of a butterfly shot my husband took at the zoo here in Oregon. (I cannot attach photos all that well!)
 
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  • Bright blue morpho butterfly with open wings resting on a rough brown palm trunk, surrounded by yellow black-eyed Susan flowers in a greenhouse-like setting.
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Borek said:
A man with a dark mustache and short dark hair sits in front of a wooden sideboard, looking over his shoulder toward the camera. Behind him, framed displays of pinned butterflies cover the white wall, and a wall clock hangs on the left.


Background is what counts in this picture :wink:

Borek, is that an urn in the background?
 


No.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samovar

Not that we ever used it. Still, a nice one, made in the city of Tula. As far as I know my Dad had some rare sabre that he lent to one of his friends - when the sabre got lost, he got the samovar as a satisfaction for a lost item.
 


Andre, the butterfly flight shots are amazing! The third one is the best.

Borek, the variety of the butterflies in th epictures you have taken are very nice. In addition, the butterfly collection you have in the backround of the picture is quite large. My collection pales in comparison. :frown:
 


Thanks ~Christina~, that reminds me, I need to visit the greenhouses of the botanical garden of the Univerrsity of Utrecht soon. They have a tropical butterfly exhibition this season.

Hmm the English version doesn't seem to work but there are online translators.

And I would not bother about a butterfly collection. A butterfly picture collection is much better.
 


Andre said:
Thanks ~Christina~, that reminds me, I need to visit the greenhouses of the botanical garden of the Univerrsity of Utrecht soon. They have a tropical butterfly exhibition this season.
Ooh you have to try to get a sequence of flight shots again. :smile: The variety of butterflies that you have taken pictures of is more than what there is available around here. :frown: (I speak of conservatories and not of native species)

And I would not bother about a butterfly collection. A butterfly picture collection is much better.
I agree that a photo collection is better but it's easier when you have a macro lens at your disposal.
 


~christina~ said:
Ooh you have to try to get a sequence of flight shots again. :smile: The variety of butterflies that you have taken pictures of is more than what there is available around here. :frown: (I speak of conservatories and not of native species)

Yes I'm am aiming for that but after the heat wave

I agree that a photo collection is better but it's easier when you have a macro lens at your disposal.

True, but it's not the only one. If you put a +1 dioptry close up lens on a moderate telelens (100-200mm for instance), you can surprise yourself already.

Also right here you can hire photographic equipment for a day or so, so you could check out the possibilities of all kind of lenses.
 


[PLAIN]http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/7408/dsc0831vk.jpg

[PLAIN]http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/6605/dsc0063yp.jpg
 
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Sorry I missed that ~christina~ that's certainly a good start. These look very small, don't they?
 


Andre said:
Sorry I missed that ~christina~ that's certainly a good start. These look very small, don't they?

The pictures you mean? I could post larger shots of them. It is much more difficult to take pictures of small insects when you use a 300mm lens. :-p
 


300mm? a prime or a basic 70-300mm zoom? Yes 300mm is not very useable, but try to put on such a thing:

Photo of a 58mm close-up filter set: three thin black filter rings labelled 58mm +1, +2 and +4, and a larger ring labelled 58mm +10, with the strengths printed in large text beside them.


+1 and +2 are probably the most useable and if you have a zoom, mid range ~100 to 150 may work better, it also gives you the "sweet spot" of the lens (honi soit qui mal y pense) combined with an aperture Av ~ 11. Also not sure if the VR (if available) works correctly with close up lenses, you may have to turn that off. Also use flash to get a sufficient short shutter speed because things move around a lot.
 


Found another butterfly greenhouse. A few of today's captures:

Close-up of a monarch butterfly with orange and black wings feeding on purple buddleia flowers, showing its black head with white spots and antennae.


Large moth with wings spread flat on a dark green leaf, pale tan forewings with brown and black wavy lines and eyespots, and a striped abdomen.


Close-up side view of a butterfly with black and cream striped wings and a long dark antenna, resting on white flower petals with its legs gripping the bloom against a dark background.


Open-winged blue morpho butterfly resting on a dry leaf, with iridescent turquoise wings edged in dark brown and white spots.


Orange and black butterfly with white-edged wings resting on a plant with clusters of round green buds, against a grey background.


Top-down photo of a monarch butterfly with wings spread open, resting on a white orchid-like flower with magenta spots and a yellow centre.


Glasswing butterfly with largely transparent wings outlined in orange and black, resting on an orange flower against a blurred green and grey background.
 


WOW :!) those are spectacular, Andre!
 


Andre said:
Glasswing butterfly perched on an orange flower, showing wings that are largely transparent with dark veins and orange-red borders.

Is it my eyes or are the wings transparent?! I's gorguoes! Thanks for sharing. :smile:
 


You're welcome, yes it's the http://www.hemmy.net/2006/04/30/glasswing-butterfly/ .
 
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Wonderful pictures Andre! :smile:

Here's a visitor whose picture I captured several years ago.

Black swallowtail butterfly with blue and yellow spots along the hind wing edges, feeding on purple flowers against a white fence and green leaves.
 
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Andre said:
300mm? a prime or a basic 70-300mm zoom? Yes 300mm is not very useable, but try to put on such a thing:

Product photo of a set of 58mm close-up filter lenses: three black rings labelled +1, +2 and +4 stacked in front, and a larger ring labelled 58mm +10 beside them, with the text 58mm Close up filter set at top.


+1 and +2 are probably the most useable and if you have a zoom, mid range ~100 to 150 may work better, it also gives you the "sweet spot" of the lens (honi soit qui mal y pense) combined with an aperture Av ~ 11. Also not sure if the VR (if available) works correctly with close up lenses, you may have to turn that off. Also use flash to get a sufficient short shutter speed because things move around a lot.

There are very few lens attachments available at the stores that I usually frequent. It's sad. I purchased a circular polarizer and was not impressed with the result. The focus and sharpness of the images produced were of low quality.

Why doesn't VR work with the close up lenses?

close ups of the pictures I posted before:

[PLAIN]http://img841.imageshack.us/img841/6120/dsc0063cr.jpg
[PLAIN]http://img841.imageshack.us/img841/5982/dsc0831cr.jpg
 
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I could see some of these as wall hangings Andre. Such crisp bright colors. Lovely.
 


HeLiXe said:
I <3 this thread!

I have never understood this icon.

I always think it looks like an a**-hat.
 


:smile: Well at least it looks like something to you...when I first saw it, all I thought was "less than three":-p Maybe it would be a better emoticon for *$%hat than a heart...
 


Butterflies <3 coneflowers, as do bees and hummingbirds. The bush is right in back of my monitor so I can peek out from time to time to see who's here.

Orange and brown butterfly with dark spots perched on a pink coneflower with an orange-brown centre, another coneflower in the background, green foliage behind.
 


Nice Andy, but would that visitor be so kind and sit still for one and a half second?

I had rejected this picture as first choice at first, because it was underexposed. It's likely that the control mechanism cut off the flash early due to the overwhelming light return from the flash due to those flowers close by.

But the butterfly (~Christina~, did you identify it already?) was hovering as can be seen from the folded legs and yet it was quite crisp, so I decided to unreject it and do some RAW post processing, to get rid of the noise due to the underexposure.

This is the full shot

Photo of a black, white and yellow-spotted butterfly with a red thorax feeding on pink flowers, wings partly open, with a dark blurred background.


and a 50% crop (showing the noise too)

Close-up of a butterfly with black wings marked by red veins and a white patch, its red-and-black thorax and yellow-green abdomen visible, feeding on a pink flower.
 


Andre said:
Nice Andy, but would that visitor be so kind and sit still for one and a half second?

I had rejected this picture as first choice at first, because it was underexposed. It's likely that the control mechanism cut off the flash early due to the overwhelming light return from the flash due to those flowers close by.

But the butterfly (~Christina~, did you identify it already?) was hovering as can be seen from the folded legs and yet it was quite crisp, so I decided to unreject it and do some RAW post processing, to get rid of the noise due to the underexposure.

Nice photo- excellent sharpness as well; what lens are you using?

Yes, the bee not only sat still for 1.5 seconds (not to mention the lack of a breeze), but didn't mind me sticking the camera in its face... I should probably get a flash...
 

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