Wandering destination: Around Mumbai

Greater Flamingo at Shivadi

IIT Bombay campus hosts innumerable varieties of birds, flowers, trees and butterflies. However, it has natural and ecological limitations. Every living species around Mumbai cant be seen in the campus. Some of the species are jungle dwellers and prefers thick, unattended forest. For example some butterflies species like Baronet, Tinsel, Western centaur Oakblue are seen in the jungles of SGNP and Tungareshwar WLS but IITB Campus. To explore more wonders about nature, apart from campus, there are some immediate destinations near Mumbai sub-urban. Here is consolidated information about one-day return spots.

Lungs of Mumbai, SGNP

Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP): Campus shares some of its boundaries with SGNP. SGNP, a  protected are of about 104 sq. km., spreads from Borivali to Thane.  An estimated 800 types of flowering plants; 284 kinds of birds; 5,000 species of insects; 36 types of mammals; 62 reptiles and 150 species of butterfly can be found. some distinguished features of the park are nature trails, Karvy flowers blooming after every 7/8 years, Kanheri caves. Ticket for individual is 20 Rs and park can be accessed from 6 AM to 6 PM. From IIT, BEST or NMMT buses drops you at the very entrance of the park. Private vehicles are allowed inside the park with some fees. For trekking and nature trails, prior permission is required.

Jungles in SGNP

Shiwadi bird watching spots

Shivadi: Famous for Flamingo's. Many other water birds (gulls, waders, snipers, herons,etc) can be seen in the mangrove forest. Best time of the day would be morning to visit. The are plenty of spots to seat calmly and watch bird activities. Take a train from Kanjur to Shiwadi, with one change over at Dadar. Start walking towards sea coast and ask for Jetty. Jetty is the best spot among many. Siwari fort could be an attraction for some, Colgate gate is another point to watch birds closely.  

Yeoor Hills: This is entry to SGNP from Thane. Buses from IIT Main gate to Mulund and then catching bus towards yeoor takes about 45 minutes to reach the destination under normal circumstances.

Tata power plant at backdrop, Shivadi

Map of Nagla Block

Nagla: Another extension of SGNP. Its far from the disturbances by the tourists. For butterfly lovers, there can be few surprises post monsoon season. Some exotic species of butterflies like Silver streak Blue, Chocolate Albatross, Orange Awlet, Acacia Blue are often sited. To reach Nagla, take a bus from Main gate to Mulund and then from Mulund to Hotel Fountain. Walk about a kilometer towards Ahmedabad on the highway and there u are. On right side there are some houses and thats the way in to the Nagla block.

Mahim Nature Park: Situated in the midst of city and spread over a large area on the banks of Mithi. Very well maintained and can be good starting point to watch nature closely and comprehensively. It hosts every natural element : birds, butterflies, flowers.Entry fee is 10 rs. Permission required to take photos. A bus from Gandhinagar bus stop drops very near to MNP.

Some poems

Here are few interesting poems related to nature. Photograph composed to way space to the poems. 

Flower : by Ravindranath Tagore. Flower: Hibiscus

Hugos " Flower to butterfly" by Eugene Field, along with fresh Common Mormon butterfly

From Cocoon forth a butterfly by Emily Dickinson and fresh common emigrant

Angles for butterfly photography

Army of bluebottles puddling

Photography of a full grown butterfly can be divided into two categories : Documentary and Artistic. In this post I will be discussing both of them in details with some interesting examples. Many photographers hesitate to move, bend and sometimes laying on the ground. Simply taking the photograph from the angle you first see it, does not makes a great photo. As a thumb-rule, for every purpose of butterfly photography and butterfly activity, there exist a typical angle to shoot. However this rule doesn't apply for artistic photography.

A. Butterfly Documentary Photography:
Purpose of this kind is help for identification, spot record and documentation.

1. Closed wing / Under wing (UN) shot:  In case of some species like lascar, sailor this shot is of utmost importance in identification process. A perfect UN photo is needed to see all the marking on the wing neatly. To accomplish, this one has to wait for butterfly to close its wings and settlement. During nectoring, butterfly seats on the flower. If the flower is not high enough, one needs to to bend. Otherwise one has to adjust the height accordingly.

After this, photographer should get in a place where camera is exactly perpendicular to the wings of the butterfly. Such angle covers the whole wing. It also helps to have lower aperture number, as depth of field required would be very shallow. Lower f-number will help to choose higher shutter speeds (improves sharpness of the photograph) and lower depth of field will impart nice bokeh to the image. Both features will enhance the beauty of the photo and additionally will make a perfect picture for documentation. This position of camera/photographer is much important when shooting mud-puddling butterflies.

One has to lay down flat on the ground to shoot in this angle. Often, photographers keeps standing and shoot mud puddling butterfly. This gives a slant and partial view of the same. If one cant lay down on ground, camera with veri-angle screen e.g. Canon 30X, Canon 60D etc is useful. Veri-anlge LCD will help to keep camera on ground and then tilting the LCD to view, focus and compose the image. Another case for a closed wing would be when  butterfly is resting on some small object with wings complete open. This can also provide under wing shot, small object hiding some part of the body.

Use of veri-angle or tilting LCD for mud-puddling butterfly

2. Open wing / upper wing (UP) shot: Apart from help in ID, Open wing shot often helps in differentiating male and female. There can be two occasions to get complete open wing shot of a butterfly: While basking or while mud-puddling. In the morning, butterfly often seats on a large leaf with wings flat open. This is in order to dry there wet wings because of dew. Most butterflies seats at suitable height for photographing, specially the small ones like plains cupid, line blues, lime blue etc. Some like Tawney rajah seats on a big leaf at some height, not reachable, making ti difficult to photograph. Again for a perfect open wing shot one should bring lens axis perpendicular to the plane of the wings spread. Advantages are same as stated in closed wing shot.

Perfect angle of tiny butterflies is sometimes intriguing

3. Miscellaneous shots: On very rare occasions, shot of the antenna is required. The angle to shoot whole of the antenna would be perpendicular to the plane of the antenna. This is critical shot, as one must shoot it at 1:1 macro. 

B. Butterfly Artistic Photography: 

Shot this beauty from the front while mud-puddling

        Although, every perfect and sharp shot taken with documentary kind of angle will be artistically appreciable I wish to mention some angles in this category. My personal favorite is the front angle. Eyes of butterfly is a striking feature when shot closely. A complex-eye structure is fabulous when seen in close-up. When shot from front side of the butterfly, during nectoring or mud-puddling, both eyes are captured. Mud-puddling is the best opportunity to have such shot. Added advantage in this case is the proboscis inserted in the ground. Another angle would be from behind of the butterfly. Almost every butterfly has dummy eyes like markings on its hind-wings. This is to create an illusion and in order to protect butterflies from predators like bird. These eyes and sometimes tails can be interesting to watch.

Eiffel tower like pose of apefly

Example of wallpaper angle

Another interesting  but difficult-to-achieve angle is : wallpaper angle. When butterfly opens its wings partially during nectoring or mud-puddling, one can photograph the pose at 45 degree angle. This covers almost every part of butterfly, although partially. It creates nice blur effect to out of depth of field parts.

A high angle would be interesting when shooting a butterfly with open wings and sitting at some height above photographers head. Eye can be focused perfectly, while making the rest of body blur by choosing lowest possible aperture. Photographing sailors with this angle would be a good net practice . Sailor like butterflies often seats in such position. 

High angle of common sailor

High angle of common sailor, another one

Butterfly Egg

Top and side view of a Common baron egg laid on Cashew leaf

Zebra blue laying egg on Plumbago.

     Life cycle of a butterfly starts with an egg. Probably most wonderful activity by a tiny creature apart from nectoring. Chain of actions before egg laying adds excitation and sometimes surprise to the nature lover.It all starts with hunt for the right larval host plant. Female hovers over a region to find the appropriate one. Now one has to be ready with the camera and track the lady. Female settles, sits on the prospective surface with curved abdomen, it is the start for the egg laying activity. For cameraman to shoot egg laying activity, getting into right position sometimes a not-easy-to-do job. Furthermore the activity lasts for few seconds in many cases when a single egg is laid. However if multiple eggs are laid then its relatively simple to take best photos. Watching egg laying female is best start to  successful life cycle documentation.

Fresh Egg of common crow, sticky liquid is seen at the base

         Eggs are too tiny, sometimes even for 1:1 macro lens, to take good photos. Best setup would be - a tripod mounted camera with true macro lens and creative lighting system. Sharp and close-up image reveals the features of the egg properly. The ornamentation with ridges, pits, polygonal cells can be seen in best of the image. A thin layer of sticky substance can also be seen. This layer keeps the eggs attached to the surface where it is laid, surface may be a leaf or bud or flower. Normally it takes about 2-4 days to hatch an egg and hatching time depends on the species.





       Few observations of egg/s, may lead to conclude about the butterfly species and to determine whether the egg was laid by butterfly or some other insect. Here are some points which can be considered while observing eggs:

Top view of dome shaped egg of Giant Red Eye

1. The larval host plant: Every butterfly prefers one out of bunch of preferred plants to lay eggs. This information and verification in the checklist reduces the list of possible candidates to few.  For example, If a butterfly egg is found on coconut tree, most likely it would be of common palmfly. Some species need association of ant for caterpillar growth. In such cases, female prefers the plant only if ants are present. On very few occasions, egg is laid in the vicinity of the larval host plant. In this case, caterpillar searches for right plant and starts feeding. A rare case is female making a mistake in identifying the larval host plane. Such "oviposition" mistakes are uncommon but have been  reported. Me and Abhay were involved in one such case by common wanderer female. She laid eggs on Ziziphus, which is not a LHP of the species involved. We searched for its usual LHP, Capparis, in the vicinity. We found none. 

2. The shape of an egg: It differs from family to family. 

     a) White and yellows: Eggs like bottle shaped or grain of rice.

     b) Swallowtails : Round shape like ball.

     c) Blues: Semi-spherical or dome shaped with spines

     d) Skippers: dome shaped without any markings

     e) Brush-footed butterflies: Half-open flower 

3. Number of eggs: Number of eggs laid in a batch depends on the butterfly species. Some lay single egg while some lays many eggs in batches. Number of eggs in batch may vary from a small batch of 2-3 eggs to a big hundred. Egg laying in small batches for few days may happen in case of some species. Common wanderer is observed to lay around 7 eggs in two batches. Small salmon Arab, Tawney Castor may lay around hundred eggs.

4. Location on surface where egg is laid: Leaf of larval host plant is most preferred place to do so. Sometimes its laid under the leaf, over the leaf, on offshoot. Some species choose flowers to lay egg on. 

Different types of butterfly eggs

Spherical egg of Common Nawab	Seven eggs of Common Wanderer, laid in two batches
Egg of Common Sailor on tip of leaf	Most likely egg of Dark evening brown

Forget-me-not (Catochrysops strabo) egg laying on sprouts of Paracalyx scariosus  (Marathi: रान घेवडा )

Dark grass blue laying egg on flower

 

References: 

1. Butterflies of peninsular India by Dr. Krushnmegh Kunte, 1st Editiion, 2000, University Press Pvt. Ltd.

Photographing Butterlies - Camera Operation

   

In this post I am discussing some camera techniques explicitly to shoot butterflies. I assume the objective is to get clear, sharp and completely focused object and not discussing how to shoot an artistic shot. 

1. Mode of shooting: A good butterfly photograph should show sharp, entirely focused object with blurred background. To accomplish this, one has to choose aperture and shutter speed wisely. Here I assume ISO 100/200 (we will talk about it later). To shoot such images, aperture may be varied between 5.6 to 16 depend upon light conditions. Shutter speed and aperture acts opposite to each other (Higher f-number, lower the shutter speed). Having said this, if one is firing fill flash, shutter speed is restricted to synchronizing speed (normally 1/200 or 1/250). Thumb rule for shutter speed selection says: Shutter speed should be more or equal to the focal length. For example, when shooting with focal length = 200 mm, shutter speed must be at least 1/200s.This is important factor when selecting lens for photographing butterfly. Aperture will decide the depth of field. Simply say how blur is the background or what part of the frame is focused. Higher the aperture (say f2.8) more blurry the background. 

           With this little theory, lets come back to mode of shooting. Here modes under consideration are Manual, Aperture Priority and Shutter priority. I prefer to shoot in manual mode. This allows to select  shutter speed and aperture independently.  If sunlight is enough, I can achieve perfect exposure with many combinations of shutter speed and aperture. When, aperture/depth of field is priority shoot with aperture priority mode. This fixes the shutter speed. Sometimes shutter priority is preferred to shoot fast moving butterflies ( Mormon), Where continuous fluttering of their wings need to be frozen in the frame, higher shutter speed is necessary (Often 1/500 or above). Two images of Leafblue, are the example towards changing f number and its effect on depth of field. With f5 and descent sunlight I was able to achieve very good Bokeh and descent speed of 1/250. It was limited by synchronizing flash speed as built in flash was used.

As shot, External flash failed to fire.

2. Shoot RAW photos: RAW is just like digital negative of the photograph. It preserves every details and enables user to manipulate them in post processing. Whereas when saved directly in JPEG format, most of the data is lost irreversibly, and nothing great can be achieved in post-processing. Shooting in RAW is very much useful in situations where flash does not fires, achieving perfect exposure is problem (White or Violet surfaces), etc. Every SLR has an option to shoot in RAW and NOT every point shot have it. The only disadvantage RAW shooting offers is that it takes a lot of space. Size of RAW file is approximately 3 times larger than corresponding JPEG image.A typical 8GB card will hold around 300 12-bit RAW images. But one can always carry multiple cards and change them when required.

3. Flash: Always us Fill flash for butterflies, yes even in day light. I prefer to use fill flash always and adjust the shutter speed and aperture to adjust the blending of the fill light. This blending is important otherwise it looks like one has pasted the object into. If one is operating camera in aperture priority mode, this problem is solved by i-TTL facility. It selects amount of flash needed to be casted for perfect exposure, sensing the ambient light condition.

After adjusting exposure of the failed image. 

4. ISO: In simple sense, this is the measure of sensitivity of the camera towards light. Higher the ISO, higher the sensitivity, higher the noise. Generally ISO is setting is not changed in the field. For butterflying on particular day, start with ISO 400 (early morning upto 7am), then gradually start reducing ISO to 100 (at around 11 am in the summer). Obviously this depends on the ambient conditions. In shade, ISO might need to be increased again. So my advice to avoid all this jugglery, one can set ISO 200, a small compromise with noise and achieve maximum shutter and aperture.

Note: All images are copyrighted. (c) Paresh Kale, 2012.

Camera and accessories selection for macro photography

This post is about the camera and lens selection, particularly for shooting butterflies and flowers.

Lens Selection (For SLR):
This is really dance on the tight rope.
1. A macro lens at least 90 mm, with 1:1 reproduction. Lenses from 90 mm to 105 mm are handy lenses with descent minimum focus distance and focal length. 180 mm lens are bulky, costly however produces good bokeh. A 300 mm lens with VR will also serve fantastic overall. As it do not create 1:1 image, may face little problem with very small ones. This focal length will give nice bokeh and can be used with 2X TC for birding if fast enough.
2. VR/OS/IS is must. Image stabilization or Vibration Reduction technology increases the possibility of sharp images. VR I is sufficient. This lenses comes with more money obviously.
3. Internal focusing (IF) allows the focusing without changing the length of the lens barrel.

Camera selection:
 Many asks which one is better, Canon or Nikon? I say both are good, depending what kind of use u wish. Nikon has great low light capture probabilities. Canon can shoot good video. Canon 1D is famous in Hollywood for supportive shoots. For butterflying any of them will do. Here is the list of characteristics a camera should have to shoot macro photos.
1. Raw shooting ability.
2. Manual, shutter priority and aperture priority mode.
If SLR, then I would prefer to have at least a semi-pro body (Nikon D90/D7000 or Canon 60D/ 7d). Major advantages with this category is the built in motor.

If one is not using a SLR then,
1. Zoom around 12x to 18X is sufficient.
2. 12 MP is sufficient.
In this category I have seen pretty good results with Panasonic Lumix FZ series. 

Accessories selection:

1.  Battery: Cameras like D7000 can deliver upto 1000 snaps without flash/external flash. So for a short trip I dont see necessity of carrying extra battery. Even same would be the case with canon 60D or 7D. However, batteries of point and shoot camera exhausts after about 250 snaps. In that case one may need extra one or in some case two batteries per day. Better to go for original batteries. In case of extensive use of the batteries, non-branded batteries can give good returns on money invested. 

2. Flash: External flash is indeed necessary. It reveals true colors, tinges and hues on the butterfly body. Built-in flash is not sufficient for this. I have not yet used ring flash or R1-C1. But from the results people are posting, they seems to add more drama and story to the image as compared to external flash. Obviously a charger and rechargeable cells for external flash. Duracell batteries seems to last ling than most other n the category.Ranges from 5000 to 30000 RS or more. Branded ones are advisable as they provide i-TTL operation.

3. Tripod: Tripod wont be that useful in the field shooting last stage butterfly. It is useful when shooting early stages  like egg, larva. Buy a strong tripod with ball head. Cost may be from 8000 to 20000 Rs and more. Cheap tripods without ball head are difficult for operation, doesent take gear weight, shakes even with breeze. To remind, wind is the worst enemy for macro photography.

4. Storage: as I said Raw shooting is better. To do this, one needs more storage. Fast cards with data transfer rates above 30 mbps or more would be helpful. Cards in "Extreme" category, has such writing speeds. Also they have lots of protective feature against shocks, X-ray, water etc. Better to invest in them once. Also dont use card more than 8GB (optimistic value, most will suggest 4Gb some 2GB even). This slows down the writing process. 

5. Extension tubes: Will serve excellent if the object is static. One can be very near to the object and get very good magnification. Absence of any glass material, so doesn't cause any optical loss. Comes for about 8000 Rs. Kenko is good brand. My anticipation is, when used with lens like 50mm f1.4, can give sharpest results, competing even a macro lens. The disadvantage is the operation. Many times time needs manual focusing. Which makes it difficult for shooting moving objects. 

6. Tele-converter: Its a lens, with ability to magnify picture by 1.4X, 1.7X, 2X times. Also modifies the magnification in the same ration i.e. 1:2 lens will be 1:1 with 2X TC. Costs around 10,000 Rs. As it has glass elements, optical quality reduces. Useful with fast lens (aperture at-least 2.8 or so). Better to invest in some good lens than mounting this with other cheap lens. Not advisable.

Blue Oakleaf

  

Blue Oakleaf - Open wing position

    Blue Oakleaf is an unusual shaped butterfly, known for its unparallel camaflouge technique. When closed, the wings of the oakleaf simulates shape of a dry leaf. Seating position , normally on trunk or branch of the tree, adds drama to it and looks as if a leaf of the tree. Blue Oakleaf settles in such position, blends with tree structure and makes it a challenging to find it out when one was not tracking it.

Quick Facts:

Common Name : South Indian Blue Oakleaf

Latin Name: Kallima Horsfieldii

Typical Wingspan : 85 to 120 mm
Geographical Distribution : Mumbai, Nashik towards south.
Status: Locally Common

Different individuals of Blue Oakleaf
showcasing variety and uniqueness of patterns

    However in flight, this beauty is easy to identify. Flashy blue, quick but erratic flight and large wingspan features makes it easy for ID. In IIT campus, this insect was abundant soon after rainy season. A sure shot sighting on a bamboo tree sap in hill side area. On every visit, we were able to spot at least 2-3 specimens. However, any other activity by it like mating, egg laying, courtship etc was never observed by us. Surprisingly, oakleaf population seemed declined in February. Not a single specimen was sited.

As far as geographical distribution is concerned, This  specie is restricted to South India, hence named, and is not yet recorded in North India. Likely upper boundaries are Mumbai and Nashik.

  Most interesting fact about this species is its under-wing pattern. According to Winter Blyth, no two oakleaf bare similar under-wing pattern, making every individual unique. A collage of different specimens recorded in and around Mumbai will suffice this fact.

Hasora badra (Common Awl)

This is a beautiful skipper. It is very swift in flight. Its flight is long sustain. It is to be seen most often during early hours of morning and evening.

This skipper was first seen nectoring on Lantana in month of October 2012, in our campus. I was seeing this beautiful butterfly for the first time. It was around 8.30 in morning. It was lucky day because I decided to take camera with me, consequently got few snaps. I saw both female and male nectoring. Female have yellowish spots in the cell and in apical region of forewing while male has no yellowish spots on forewing cell and apical region.

Flash reveals purple colour on underside of their wings. There were 5-6 Common Awls. After that I regularly saw Common Awls nectoring there for almost 3 weeks.

Its status is given as 'not rare' in Wynter-Blyth.

Reference:

Wynter-Blyth, M.A. “Butterflies of the Indian Region”.