Butterfly pictures

[ken_wang1]

<p>I have a Nikon D40 and I'm going to a field trip next week (butterfly house).<br>

How would you approach to take close ups of the butterflies?<br>

How to take butterflies in motion? Should I use the speed more than aperture.<br>

Please advise</p>

[eric_arnold]

<p>butterflies are much more approachable if you camoflage yourself to look like one. sorry couldnt resist.</p>

<p>as with any moving subject, you will want to use a fairly fast shutter to freeze motion. that means either shoot in shutter-priority or manual. however, since butterflies tend to alight on a flower, you can pre-focus on the flower or shoot them once they have landed, which might be easier than trying to get them in the air, especially with a D40, whhich doesnt have the best AF tracking. i'd still keep the shutter high and use a shallow DoF for individual butterflies. for multiple butterflies in the same shot, you'd probably want more DoF, like 5.6 or f/8.</p>

[wpahnelas]

<p>i wouldn't count on getting butterflies in motion. they tend to fly erratically -- unlike birds, for instance, they don't fly in anything resembling a straight line... so good luck tracking one...<br>

as for shooting them, i can speak from experience from when i had a D40: if you have a long zoom, use it. when a butterfly is concentrating on its flower, you can move in as close as your len's closest focus distance and start firing away. that's your best chance at filling most of the frame without doing a lot of cropping.<br>

as for shutter and f/stop: with the zoom, you're probably going to have pretty narrow DOF, so i wouldn't obsess with aperture. your background is going to be totally indistince. as for shutter, judge on the amount of light, taking into account that the amount of time a butterfly is perfectly still will be minimal.<br>

it's not that hard. just take a lot of pictures and you're sure to get some good ones.</p><div></div>

[jeannean_.]

<p>Tracking them is hard. I shot my first butterfly with my D40/55-200mm VR zoom with a Nikon 4T diopter/lens this morning. This little bitty thing was about the size of a dime, and the whole frame was about the size of a quarter. I've noticed (now that I can take a close up pics from a foot away with the zoom and the 4T) they are less flighty early in the morning. I had given up chasing butterflies. They're too quick unless they're slow moving or you have a fast zoom. Imagine my surprise when I saw this little critter in my lens posing away...<br /> <img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/9628142-lg.jpg" alt="" /></p>

[Jerry_]

<p>You did not make note of which lens you plan on using.</p>

<p>Please see</p>

<p><a href="http://www.photo.net/photo/9465971">http://www.photo.net/photo/9465971</a></p>

<p><a href="http://www.photo.net/photo/9482085">http://www.photo.net/photo/9482085</a></p>

<p><a href="http://www.photo.net/photo/9591697">http://www.photo.net/photo/9591697</a></p>

<p>for a few examples of "outdoor" butterfly images.</p>

 

[Kent Shafer]

<p>Here's a site with amazing butterfly pictures and info about the photographer's hi-tech methods: <a href="http://www.simpho.com/">http://www.simpho.com/</a>. (Home page in French, but note that there's an English tab.)</p>

[ted_raper1]

<p>I used to shoot a lot of butterflies, and as noted above they are hard to track because they fly erratically. Here's what worked for me: I found a spot known to attract them, set the camera on a tripod with a cable release. Prefocused on a particular flower (I usually used a pretty long lens, 200 mm or so), then parked myself in a lawn chair several feet away with a rum and coke. When a butterfly landed on my prefocused flower, I took the shot. Yeah, it takes a fair chunk of time to do this, but for me it beat trying to follow them around.</p>

[bsd230]

<p>If you have a macro lens that will be very helpful. Just keep in mind that macro photography has a very very shallow depth of field so shoot at the smallest aperture you can get away with. Butterflies in motion I would try to shoot wide open to get the fastest shutter speed I could. You can play with the shutterspeed to get a little motion blur too. Also shoot as many photos as you can with different apertures to give you as many photos to chose from when you done. Many times things look great on the little screen but when you get home you wished you would have tried a different aperture.</p>

[Wouter Willemse]

<p>Ted, your technique rocks. Does it also work with wodka/orange juice?<br>

I doubt, though, if they allow it in a butterlfy house.</p>

<p>Personally, I never really got lucky with a (100mm) macrolens, the short working distance made most butterflies leave. I never managed enough to look like one, I guess ;-) Then again, I never really was "on the hunt" for these pictures, so I took them as they come.<br>

Personally, I think a macro diopter (4T/5T/6T things) on a long lens should be a bit better, because you can keep more working distance. Or a longer macro lens (180mm Tamron, 200mm Nikkor for example) - but they come at a quite steep price.</p>

[Ian Rance]

<p>Not perfect, but I really do prefer butterflies in flight if possible. I used a 45mm lens at f/8 and cropped in with my D50 for this photo.</p>

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