Nicest things to do is finding a butterfly

[Andre]

This is about the closest you'd get, category: almost-a-butterfly or pond damselflies.

This is a minimum range shot 1:1 macro of a yet to determine species. It's total length estimated just short of 2 in. Image reduced to 16%

The lack of DOF and the movement of the reed (and camera ) precludes manual focussing, lock the focus and readjust the composition. So I used the focus setting "AI Servo", focussing continuously. As a consequence the head is centered in the picture and not a lot of body is visible.

A 100% crop, showing the narrow DOF.

 

[Andy Resnick]

I'm starting to get better: here's a 100% crop using a 24mm macro, stopped down to f/11 or so:

http://a.imageshack.us/img529/9311/dsc00984u.jpg

 

[turbo]

I'm starting to get better: here's a 100% crop using a 24mm macro, stopped down to f/11 or so:

Very nice!

 

[Borek]

Why does it look like pictures taken at my lavender bush?

 

[Andy Resnick]

Why does it look like pictures taken at my lavender bush?

Howdy, neighbor!:)

 

[Andy Resnick]

I want to be able to take pictures like this:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnhallmen/3990029525/sizes/o/in/photostream/

 

[Borek]

I want to be able to take pictures like this:

Don't feel alone

 

[~christina~]

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.

I still stand by my original guess of the butterfly being a Queen Alexandra's Birdwing.
I found this picture of a closed winged butterfly which looks similar to what you have in your picture.
http://www.arkive.org/queen-alexandras-birdwing/ornithoptera-alexandrae/

Edit: It seems that there are a variety of "Birdwing" butterfly species which generally all have the red body and yellow abdomen.

 

[Andre]

So I went to the butterfly greenhouse in the botanical garden of the University of Utrecht today, right, the one with the paleomagnetic laboratory, https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?p=2304947#post2304947 , the last weekend it is open.

I saw this:

 

[drizzle]

Woah :!) Beautiful Andre. Do you have a larger size? I'd like to set it as my desktop screen :)

 

[Evo]

Very beautiful Andre.

 

[micromass]

Wow, very beautiful picture, Andre! I love those cute little butterflies!

 

[Andre]

Thanks, all and for drizzle the full format picture, uncropped http://dl.dropbox.com/u/22026080/IMG_2379hdn.JPG

 

[drizzle]

Wonderful! Cheers Andre :)

 

[Andy Resnick]

Excellent shot!

 

[Andre]

Another butterfly greenhouse today. The wettest hottest so far. I had to change shirts, great that it's cool outside today.

The star of the show

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/22026080/but1.jpg

More in close up

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/22026080/but2.jpg

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/22026080/but3.jpg

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/22026080/but4.jpg

now, these little yellow dots? Pollen? parasite? parasite eggs?:

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/22026080/but5.jpg

Not the star of the show, but the shot is esthetically the most pleasing IMO:

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/22026080/but6.jpg

 

[M Quack]

Great pictures, I love the DoF you get on the macros. I would maybe play with cropping a bit. E.g. trying a square image format

 

[Andre]

Great pictures, I love the DoF you get on the macros. I would maybe play with cropping a bit. E.g. trying a square image format

Yes you're right, these are mere thumbnails of the whole frames for quick result. There is a lot of finetuning with post processing and cropping ahead.

 

[lisab]

Nice! I'm beginning to think butterflies are more vain than cats. They seem to love to pose!

 

[Evo]

Absolutely beautiful Andre!

 

[turbo]

I should start budgeting for a decent macro. My wife is turning our front lawn into a jungle of flowering plants, so we get lots of butterflies.

 

[Andre]

Thanks Evo and Lisa, yes trying to estimate their vanity will be in vain.

I hope it will work out Turbo, the 100mm is really at bargains prices nowadays, at least here in the Netherlands.

For Borek, Marzena and other Canon 7D users with a Canon brand macro lens, make sure to select AI Servo for this type of work, for an amazing keeper rate. All my shots were in focus. I wished I had known that earlier.

VtKj-O3fWEU[/youtube]

 

[Borek]

make sure to select AI Servo for this type of work

Yep, important part of shooting macro. Not necessarily with 7D, it was already present since at least 400D (but most likely much earlier).

 

[drizzle]

Beautiful Andre :)

 

[NileQueen]

No tropical butterflies here, so we have to deal with whatever we can find in the field and around the house:

Latin names - in file names. Pictures marked with asterisk taken by Marzena. That's not all, but others are not necesarilly worth of showing.

Andre, those are beautiful pictures. Thanks for posting.

Borek, what a variety of different butterflies you've captured! Thanks. The one with the silver arc under his underwing is a Comma, if I am not mistaken.

NQ :-)

 

[Borek]

Borek, what a variety of different butterflies you've captured! Thanks. The one with the silver arc under his underwing is a Comma, if I am not mistaken.

Thanks.

As explained in the post - file names are Latin names of the butterflies. You are right:

is a comma, AKA Polygonia c-album (known here as rusałka ceik - as far as I know c in ceik is related to the c shape on the wing, otherwise no word like ceik in Polish).

 

[Andre]

Thanks NQ, Gad

Yep, important part of shooting macro. Not necessarily with 7D, it was already present since at least 400D (but most likely much earlier).

I believe that it is explained that the doubling of the sampling rate in AI servo is only so for a 7D with a Canon macro lens (hence no sigma or so) and a magnification greater than 33%.