Jul 15
Busy bees
The day improved later in the afternoon so I headed for the overgrown field where I had photographed purple avens in June - I figured that the place should yield some other flowers as well and was secretly hoping for thistles. I got rewarded as there were thistles-a-plenty, with bumblebees busily working on them. I set up shop close to two big thistles so that I could easily point the camera on either one of them depending on which one was getting more of the action. And then all I needed to do was to wait for the customers to arrive and there was hardly a quiet moment! A beautiful butterfly wouldn’t have hurt, but all I got was some small(ish) brown(ish) thing that I can’t find in my bug book - my butterfly identifying skills are infinitely worse than my flower ditto.
I also tried to catch a bumblebee in flight, but I couldn’t quite figure out the trick. When the bees take off to flight, they don’t seem to prepare it in any way so I always missed the moment. This one I caught by accident - I was shooting the other three bees when a fourth arrived. Yes I know the flying one is OOF but I don’t care!
I normally use short or long prime with tubes and flash to shoot flying insects. When I get my Kenko extensions, I will make a new effort with my 300mm lens. I think there are some major problems with my el-cheapo tube - I suspect it is either leaking light or reflecting somehow.
If you use your 300mm lens, place it on the tripod and prefocus. Then just WAIT and shoot. Use short shutter speeds or flash. With short prime just prefocus, point and shoot. Good luck!
I would really like to get some good butterfly shots, but me and the butterflies never seem to be at the same place same time. Or we are, but my camera gear isn’t. :o) How do you find the butterflies?
I need to learn the WAIT part. I’m way too impatient to be a photographer, really.
Finding butterflies is basically finding a good pasture with lots of good butterfly plants. A plenitude of small tortoiseshell butterflies were drinking nectar @ my stepfather’s clover field! It was quite difficult to deside what to shoot :-))
Make a hike to the open grasslands and pastures and equip with 300+tubes+tripod and a macro lens. You’ll soon find out that there are two basic techniques: Wandering around with macro lens or carrying the tele and a tripod. I prefer light gear.