A quick one from the Garden

A few weeks ago, I posted this blog with a female Orange Tip on Bluebells in the garden.

Well we have had  a few Orange Tips through this year although the males have been less inclined to set down.

While I didn't get much time with my cameras over the weekend, I did manage to get this little lady who set down on an emerging Red Campion flower.

Again it was quite windy, and I had to use the technique I first described last year with using AI servo for macro work.  This was a bit more of a challenge that the shot last year as I used the 5D and 180 macro - a not very fast focussing camera, and a slow focussing lens too.  But it came up pretty reasonably so cannot complain.

Martin

Worth checking your garden in the evenings

On Sunday night as dusk was approaching, I took a look around the garden and found a female Orange Tip butterfly settled on one of the bluebells.  I went back in doors to get the camera and got these two images.

Both with the 7D , on board fill flash to help freeze any movement due to the breeze.

I have some minor colour variations here with the colour temp.  Bluebells are very sensitive to minor changes in colour temperature in processing, and show you when you are not consistent and particularly when you share back to back images like this.

Framed slightly differently between shots so you can see more of the flower in the second shot.

Sadly these are not native English bluebells but the Spanish variant.  I will leave them in the garden this year, but they will come out  as I have planted native English seeds that I expect will come up next year.

I didn't expect the Orange tip to go anywhere overnight so I went out first thng yesterday morning , with the hope of a heavy dew to add to the atmosphere.  Sadly, there was only a very mild dew that can just about be seen.

Again a slightly different crop.  I don't normally favour square crops but am reasonably happy with this.  I set the camera up with the tripod and the remote release this time, as I knew that the butterfly wasn't going to go anywhere in a hurry, so was able to use live view, manual focus and the 5x viewing facility to ensure critical focus.  In conjunction with the DOF preview button and the multi toggle, I was able to ensure that all the critical parts of the butterfly were sharp.  This one also used a the fill flash to put some additional light into the shadows.

The final shot was with the 1Dmk111 (no fill flash this time), as the batts on the 7D expired.  A more traditional crop here, but in so doing, I  lose the bottom flower of the bluebell.

If only the butterfly and bluebell had better proportions relative to each other for photographic balance  :-)

Anyway the point of this blog, other than to share a few pretty images with you, and some slightly different approaches to cropping is to check your garden when it is getting towards dusk.  If you have any butterflies settling for the evening, then get up early the next day to capture your photos, and if you are lucky you will get some with dew on them, which really does add to the image photographically.  You will see some on the last two if you click on the image to enlarge, but not much really.

By the way, female Orange Tips don't have a orange tip on their upper wings, unlike the male, in case you were wondering.  I posted the male here last year.

Martin

Techniques - Macro and AI Servo

OK - so not really true macro per se, but close up.

Normally close up work for me is manual focus and manual focus only using Live View, DOF preview and 5x magnification.

But just occasionally we are set little challenges in how we capture an image.

It was under such circumstances yesterday that I found I needed to totally change my approach.

I had been watching many different butterflies in my wildlife garden and have generally always struggled to get anything half decent. They usually spot me coming from too far away and with the 100mm macro - my usual choice you need to get close.

So what to do?

Well I put together a combination of my 1Dmk3, 70-200f2.8 IS L, at 200mm Fl, with the 1.4 EFTC, plus a 20mm extension tube. This enabled me to get the minimum focus closer than the 1.4m minimum distance. I guess I could have used the 300f4 IS L as this also has a min. focus distance of 1.5m.

But why AI Servo?

My subject, a beautiful Orange Tip butterfly, showing its undersides was resting on some Shepherds Purse, of which there is plenty in the garden at the moment. However, there was quite a breeze and the thing was flapping about in the breeze. I tried to use the standard One Shot focus mode and I tried to manually focus but all the results were poor.

So I set the AI servo response to fastest in the Custom Function settings and set the AF to AI Servo mode. This way as the subject was moving back and forth the AF would continue to track.

However, it was important that I froze that movement as well so I needed to ensure a decent shutter speed, so I opted to ramp up to ISO800. This is a setting that the 1Dmk3 handles exceptionally well, provided you expose correctly.


The final tip for would be butterfly photographers is to manage your depth of field. When they are resting like this, go for the side on shot, get perpendicular to the subject as the DOF you need is at its lowest. You will be surprised how much aperture you need - this was taken at f10

Martin