Here are a few photos I took at the Catawba Science Center's Butterfly Exhibit. I think I dropped the ball on the last one while I was processing it, might need to go back and redo that one. The orange one is my favourite. Those who live in the Hickory Area should definitely check it out :o)
1/300s f/3.2 at 15.4mm iso 200 1/100s f/3.2 at 34.5mm iso 200 1/170s f/3.2 at 17.2mm iso 200 1/120s f/3.2 at 45.6mm iso 200 1/420s f/3.2 at 45.6mm iso 200 1/220s f/3.2 at 27.9mm iso 200
I was just reading your post about butteflies in the other thread Nelzie :) We are in the same boat I'm afraid... I took about 60 shots and got about 5-6 good ones. I had the same problem with the blur factor. I was so excited, most of them looked great on my camera screen but when I got them over to the laptop they looked like crap. The kids were out of town and I went by myself, so I'm thinking of taking them to see the butterflies and it will give me another chance to use some of the hindsight knowledge I've gained to try and take better photos. This exhibit was outside and screened in, so the lighting was natural although muted from all the screening. I used a polarizer filter because I was afraid all the natural light might make them overexposed. I kept my camera on the Auto feature with macro this time. My next trip I plan to use a faster shutter speed with macro and see what happens. Might use my wide angle lens this time also. I carried around my tripod and used it on the first few photos but those little suckers are so fast there is no way you can use a tripod unless you focus on one area and just wait for a butterfly to land there. I hope my insight helped you some, I will post some more when I go back, hopefully this week.
Cheers
Dana
p.s. going to edit and add exif info to original entry asap
At the Detroit Zoo's Butterfly House, they ask that you not use any sort of Tripod. Honestly, the area really is VERY small, perhaps up to 20 people can fit into the Butterfly Exhibit without to much crowding.
I used a shutter speed of 1/200 of a second and I fear that I should have used a slightly faster speed in order to reduce some of the fuzzines in a few shots.
BUMP - looking for some tips and/or critiques... I want to go back and take some more photos before the exhibit closes and use any knowledge I gain in this thread to help me better my shots. Thanks for any help you can provide :)
I LOVE the pictures! I think you did a great job bringing out all the colors of the butterflies in their surroundings!! But then all your pictures are great!! the whole reason I purchased my new camera...now I just have to add some skill to it :)
wow, great shots! I really love the second one. The BGs are a bit distracting tho... any chance on getting some more shallow dof in the digital darkroom?
wow, great shots! I really love the second one. The BGs are a bit distracting tho... any chance on getting some more shallow dof in the digital darkroom?
and by shallow DOF do you mean blurring the background? or what would you suggest? :) Thanks!
Lovely photos Dana, captured the beautiful colours of the butterflies perfectly. I took a few of butterflies when I was on holiday with my Sony717, the only ones that turned out ok were where I had enough light to have a faster shutter speed. The best was 1/640 f3.2.
