How To Photograph Butterflies With An A6000 Camera

Butterfly photography Adjacent >>

one - Photographic techniques - daylight

2 - Photographic techniques - flash

3 - Digital cameras and lenses

iv - Top 10 tips for butterfly photography

Digital cameras & lenses

Photographic camera designs

Point & shoot compacts and megazooms have advanced a lot in recent years only if you are serious almost photographing butterflies you actually demand a DSLR or CSC camera. Both types accept a huge range of interchangeable lenses, flashguns and accessories making them suitable for a wide range of subjects including landscapes, sports, portraits and wildlife besides as butterfly photography.

DSLRs have optical viewing systems that use mirrors and prisms to divert incoming light from the lens to the viewfinder. When the shutter button is pressed the mirror swings instantly out of the style, allowing the light to accomplish the sensor. The viewfinders are bright but have the disadvantage that the view is momentarily interrupted when the mirror is raised and the shutter is open up. The mechanism may as well introduce vibrations which can bear upon prototype sharpness.

CSCs dispense with mirrors and prisms. Instead the prototype from the sensor is relayed to an EVF (electronic viewfinder), and onto a live-view monitor on the rear of the camera. There are many advantages over DSLRs - less mechanical parts, less vibration and faster auto-focusing. Viewfinder sharpness and clarity on the about contempo models is equal to that of optical prism finders.

Which brand?

I'm ofttimes asked to suggest on camera purchases. "Should I get a Canon or a Nikon?", "Who makes the best lenses?". People often claim that 1 make is better than another. I doubt if Van Gogh or Picasso descended into brand loyalty debates about their paintbrushes ! My communication would exist to steer clear of such debates. But shortlist a few cameras that meet your specifications, and then go to a shop and handle each of them. A camera which feels expert in your hands, with easily accessible controls and a high quality viewfinder will be quicker and far more than enjoyable to use than a fiddly, gimmick-laden simply less well designed model.

Choosing the right model

From an economical standpoint it is advisable to buy a camera that is due to exist discontinued, considering prices driblet dramatically when a replacement model is on the horizon. Upgrading to the very latest hi-spec model is an enticing prospect however! Personally I upgrade about once every 4 years, and buy a well established and proven model. When choosing a model I prefer to get for a camera with a superior autofocus and metering arrangement rather than a similarly priced model with more megapixels or with an articulated focus screen or advanced video capability.

Purple Emperor Apatura iris, photographed by natural light with a upkeep DSLR � Adrian Hoskins

Lenses

All the major manufacturers produce a vast range of lenses suitable for every believable state of affairs, including a wide choice of macro lenses of various focal lengths. E'er cheque compatibility between lenses and photographic camera bodies by using the charts shown on the camera manufacturer websites. Beware that certain camera functions may not work if y'all fit an incompatible lens.

At that place are 3 basic types of lens available - primes, zooms and macros. Don't be misled into thinking that the so-called 'macro' facility of zoom lenses will give yous results as good as a real macro lens, it won't. The results however are quite acceptable to many people, and it'south well worthwhile having a general purpose zoom with a close-upwards facility.

Euphydryas aurinia , 18-70mm zoom set at 70mm and closest focus � Adrian Hoskins

Zoom lenses

Standard kit lenses, typically xviii-70mm zooms, offer a reasonable working distance and focus shut enough to fill the film with a medium sized butterfly. Most manufacturers also offering longer zooms such as 18-135mm or even 18-250mm. These versatile eyes volition cover a huge range of subjects - butterflies, birds, sports, portraits, landscapes etc; and tin be left permanently stock-still to the photographic camera.

The disadvantage of zoom lenses is that they usually have a small maximum discontinuity. This reduces viewfinder brightness making it harder to compose photos in poor lighting atmospheric condition. Zoom lenses never focus equally closely as true macro lenses. They are fine for larger butterflies simply they don't focus shut enough to photograph blues, coppers or skippers.

Many people find it difficult to approach nervous butterflies, and adopt to use long prime telephotos that enable them to shoot from further away. The greater working distance nonetheless can often be a disadvantage every bit it severely limits your choice of viewpoint. Another big trouble with such lenses is their weight, which makes them difficult to agree steady and necessitates the use of a tripod.

Macro-lenses

If you are actually serious about butterfly photography, particularly if you want to photo larvae, pupae, anatomical details etc, yous will need a proper macro lens, i.e. one that volition focus continually from infinity down to life-size without needing to fiddle with switches, or to add close up lenses.

Essex Skipper Thymelicus lineola � Adrian Hoskins

The major manufacturers produce a range of macro lenses to cater for all needs. The light and easy to use lenses in the 60-70mm range are fine for the more approachable species, but butterflies are often quite nervous, then ideally you need something longer. About users therefore feel happier using something in the 90-105mm range.

The all-time lenses characteristic internal focussing, which keeps the length of the lens constant regardless of focus distance and makes focussing much faster. These lenses accept virtually silent focus motors.

Some of the more expensive lenses also feature image stabilisation which helps to reduce blurred images acquired by photographic camera-shake. At macro distances their effectiveness is limited just they will still let you utilize a slightly slower shutter speed bold of course that the subject is stationary. Beware that image stabilisation only corrects for photographic camera shake, it does not correct for subject movement!

To get this close you need a macro lens that provides a magnification ratio of 1:1 � Adrian Hoskins

If yous are considering buying one of the longer 150mm or 180mm macro lenses, beware that these are a lot heavier, much more hard to hold steady, and slower to focus than shorter lenses. At that place are times when they can exist useful to photo a distant butterfly, but for most of the time if you approach your subject carefully you should have no difficulty getting shut with a 105mm macro.

Ultra close-ups

The egg illustrated beneath is about the size of a pin head. It was photographed at 1:ane scale using a 105mm macro lens. The resulting image was so heavily cropped and sharpened. To photograph subjects this small however it is much better to mountain the lens on a long extension tube or bellows. These allow the lens to focus a lot closer, down to about 2x magnification. Unfortunately there are two major problems when using extension tubes or bellows. Firstly the amount of light reaching the sensor is greatly reduced, making information technology very difficult to see the image in the viewfinder. Secondly such set-ups are cumbersome, and are almost impossible to employ without the assist of a stiff tripod.

Another culling is to mount a 10 dioptre close-up lens on the front of a normal macro lens. This allows more light to accomplish the viewfinder, making composition and focussing a lot easier. Close-upwards lenses are much cheaper than tubes or bellows. Unfortunately their optical quality is poor, but if you use an aperture of F11-16 the loss of sharpness is minimised and the results are fairly acceptable.