I have found photographing butterflies to be a real challenge. Like the bees and other insects, they usually don't spend much time in one place even when feeding. They are constantly flitting from one flower to another, or flying around in what appears to be a very haphazard pattern.
I have had more success photographing them in cooler weather when they don't move quite so fast and occasionally land to soak in the warmth of the sun. In this case, the abundance of both flowers and butterflies made getting their photo a little more manageable.
When I was walking the Medina River Greenway trail this past Friday, August 19, Snow-on-the-Mountain were in full bloom along several sections of the trail. I happened to notice a very small orange object moving on top of one of the flowers. On closer inspection, I realized it was a butterfly with wings no longer than a half inch:
I'm not using a traditional macro-photography system to photograph this type of close-up. I am actually using a regular telephoto zoom lens set at 300 mm combined with a very high resolution image processing system. So, when I'm taking the photos, I am standing five to six feet from whatever it is I'm photographing. This makes the process somewhat less invasive and a little safer when photographing creatures like bees and wasps.
Even through the camera's viewfinder, I usually can't see much of the fine detail. For example, when I was actually looking at this last butterfly, I had no idea the outer margins of its wings are very fine hair-like filaments. It wasn't until I saw the photos on the computer monitor that I fully realized its subtly awesome beauty.
For an excellent illustrated list of butterflies of Bexar County on the sanaturalareas.org website, click here.
I have had more success photographing them in cooler weather when they don't move quite so fast and occasionally land to soak in the warmth of the sun. In this case, the abundance of both flowers and butterflies made getting their photo a little more manageable.
When I was walking the Medina River Greenway trail this past Friday, August 19, Snow-on-the-Mountain were in full bloom along several sections of the trail. I happened to notice a very small orange object moving on top of one of the flowers. On closer inspection, I realized it was a butterfly with wings no longer than a half inch:
I'm not using a traditional macro-photography system to photograph this type of close-up. I am actually using a regular telephoto zoom lens set at 300 mm combined with a very high resolution image processing system. So, when I'm taking the photos, I am standing five to six feet from whatever it is I'm photographing. This makes the process somewhat less invasive and a little safer when photographing creatures like bees and wasps.
Even through the camera's viewfinder, I usually can't see much of the fine detail. For example, when I was actually looking at this last butterfly, I had no idea the outer margins of its wings are very fine hair-like filaments. It wasn't until I saw the photos on the computer monitor that I fully realized its subtly awesome beauty.
For an excellent illustrated list of butterflies of Bexar County on the sanaturalareas.org website, click here.
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