Best lens for photographing butterflies

[acherontia]

Dave P - I was told this would get very technical
I understand all you've said - (phew) Cheers!! I didn't know all that about some dslrs.

Stacking does help - but it is very time consuming for every day type stuff and I'm not entirely sure about how some stock sites would view it.. Heaven knows they're fussy enough about sharpening or any manipulation whatsoever......

Thanks for your excellent advice!

Pentaxpete - it's a real b..er isn't it besides when they decide to fly off.
I spent 1 hour trying to get a tiny beetle the other day. It stayed still - in fact I ended up taking its piece of plant to a brighter spot. The wind blew, the sun kept going in and out and I was changing settings like mad. I tried manual then auto and eventually got something near which didn't pass muster on the pooter...grrrrr indeed

Acher

[PentaxPete]

How familiar that all sounds !

But hey - wildlife is wildlife. They dont pose , they dont have to look good for the camera, you take 'em as you find 'em. Thats the beauty.

Landscapes / posing people / architecture - you can have them all doing what you want more or less. The challenge is much greater with living breathing things that move

[Cellarman]

Why don't you just put a supplementary close-up lens on your existing zoom and see how that works. A +1 or +2 will allow you to get close and still use your autofocus if you want, but I find that it's best to switch to manual, set the magnification by using the focus, then move gently back and forwards to get the image sharp.

[pressld2]

Originally Posted by PentaxPete

But hey - wildlife is wildlife. They dont pose , they dont have to look good for the camera, you take 'em as you find 'em. Thats the beauty.

Couldn't agree more! A well known photography magazine recently offered this sage piece of advice for photographing wildlife...

"Choose a clean complementary background."

Not that it's bad advice per se, it's just that the vast majority of us do a lot of our photography from public hides in nature reserves where the background is what it is and you just have to live with it. For the subject of this thread - butterflies and macro in general - we do get a little bit more choice, e.g...



Same insect on the same thistle, just a different viewpoint.

But we're still pretty much limited to where the insect decides to settle.

Dave P.

[acherontia]

Ooh - beautiful swallowtail! You don't get many of those to the pound round here - unfortunately

And yes - when you get a good shot (of any wildlife) it makes all that pain and heartache worth it. I'd hate to do babies and weddings...

Acher

[PentaxPete]

Amazing shots Dave - we dont get them either, more's the pity. Cabbage Whites by the 1000

[PentaxPete]

Originally Posted by acherontia

I'd hate to do babies and weddings...

Acher

Only if i was good enough to get paid, but it wouldnt be a passion - just business. It'd then pay for better glass for me and the wildlife

[col188]

90% of my photos on here are taken with Canon 100mm 2.8 macro lens. Before that I used a Minolta 100 mm macro lens, when I had a 7D.
Although I have used a 70-200mm, but it's very heavy.

I enjoy stalking and have the patience ( just) to wait for Butterflies to orient themselves into a reasonable position. Some fly away without giving a shot, that's part of the experience.
Anyhow here are a few of my recent Butterfly shots.

Col
Ps Since being on here I now use the 30ds integral flash, and the 430 ex with stofen

[acherontia]

I like #2. It has a bit of impact and looks fairly sharp - it's difficult to gauge when you're on a low resolution link like this and can't pixel peep.

#4 has the point of focus on the wings and not on the head/eyes. The eyes are all in lepidoptera as well as more or less everything - it's what links us with the other beings - or so I'm told. Well - it works for me

If you aim for anything in photography - look and aim for the eyes.


Acher