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.