Insects

Feeding butterfly (Polyommatus icarus; common name: Common blue butterfly)

Watching the butterflies flying from flower to flower in a field is a breathtaking sight. However, you have to be careful and quick. The butterfly will only spend some seconds on each flower so you have to focus and shoot almost instantly. The use of manual focusing is a must for large magnifications. Shot in the afternoon with natural light and fill-in flash. The magnificent SB800 managed to light the scene correctly (i-TTL / not balanced). Special thanks are due to Matt Rowlings for identifying this butterfly. You can read more about it at his site http://www.eurobutterflies.com/ 

Photo by George J. Reclos

Shooting data:

Camera: Nikon D70
Lens: Tamron SP AF 180mm f/3.5 Di Macro 1:1
Sensitivity: ISO200
Shutter speed: 1/160sec @ f/11
Flash: SB-800 on-camera TTL (non BL) mode
Image: JPEG processed in Photoshop CS, unsharp mask filter, curves to reduce the highlights and resized.  

Brimstone I (Gonepteryx rhamni)

This butterfly suddenly appeared when I was shooting other insects in my garden. I was able to shoot a lot of photos of this butterfly as it landed on a flower. When it flew to another flower it was almost impossible to follow it with a 180mm lens but I managed to capture it. Of course the extremely shallow DOF makes it very hard to have such a butterfly completely in focus, and the slow AF on such a macro lens doesn't help either. Being there at the right time with the right equipment is an essential condition, but above all I'll just have to conclude that it's a lucky shot!

Photos by Frank Panis

Shooting Data:
Camera: Nikon D70
Lens: Tamron SP AF 180mm f/3.5 Di Macro 1:1
Sensitivity: ISO400
Shutter speed: 1/1000sec
Flash: none
Image: RAW, converted in Nikon editor, sharpening low, contrast +15, then opened in PS7, de-noised, resized to 1200 pixels wide and added USM and saved in JPEG

Brimstone II

Here it sucks the nectar from the flower. The direct sunlight made the butterfly bright enough to ensure a fast shutter speed.

Shooting Data:

Camera: Nikon D70
Lens: Tamron SP AF 180mm f/3.5 Di Macro 1:1
Sensitivity: ISO200
Shutter speed: 1/800sec
Flash: none
Image: RAW, converted in Nikon editor, sharpening low, contrast +15, cropped to 1200pixels, then opened in PS7 and added USM and saved in JPEG

Brimstone III

Shooting Data:

Camera: Nikon D70
Lens: Tamron SP AF 180mm f/3.5 Di Macro 1:1
Sensitivity: ISO200
Shutter speed: 1/640sec
Flash: none
Image: RAW, converted in Nikon editor, sharpening low, contrast +15, cropped to 1200pixels, then opened in PS7 and added USM and saved in JPEG.