P. Cockby
raishComment by dtremain: Beautiful butterfly, and nice tie in with the color on the wings and the flowers. As you have discovered,it is really tough to get a good shot of these. They are in constant motion, with random movements, and when they do land, they fold their wings.
Some things i have learned to do shooting them are...
After they land, use the few seconds to frame and focus, then wait for them to open their wings.
Set your focus to the center focal point only. Autofocus is too slow to lock on before they move. If you really want the focus to be spot on, turn off autofocus and practice until you get really get good at focusing quickly and accurately.
Deepen your depth of field. This requires good light, a larger aperture number (f/8 or above), higher iso, moving closer to the subject, or a combination of all or some of those.
For example, on your shot, if you had had about 1/2 inch more depth of field, both the butterfly and flower would be in focus.
Do NOT be discouraged by the low score on this entry. All it says is that there is room for improvement.
Photographer found comment helpful.
