APOGEE PHOTO MAGAZINE: Capturing Butterflies by Jakub Jasinski

My favorite recipe for a successful nature photograph is to pick a well-known subject and portray it in a novel way. Pictures capture initial attention when the viewer can easily identify the subject, but it is the photographer's technique which entices the viewer to look again and again. For example, butterflies are some of the most widely known and easily recognized insects in the world, but few have seen these creatures though a macro lens. Why? Because their active behavior, irregular flying pattern and the large circle of safety they maintain make them challenging subjects. However, if your effort as a nature photographer goes well, the results can be very rewarding.

A Time, A Place, and Preparation

As with most nature subjects, timing is the crucial factor. Some truly wonderful butterfly photographs can be taken before dawn when the metabolic rate of these insects is very low, holding them practically motionless. At that time, most of them are hiding from their nocturnal predators, so you need to look very carefully as you walk across the meadows of your local park. Your subjects can be found anywhere from ground level to the branches of the trees. With their wings folded, their camouflage design makes them difficult to locate, but eventually your search will reward you with many beautiful specimens decorated with morning dew, patiently posing for you during the last windless moments before the onset of day.

Soon after sunrise, butterflies spread their wings wide, ready to absorb heat and start feeding. During that period, your lens will still not disturb them, even if you approach within a few inches. Moreover, they will remain motionless for several minutes--giving you enough time to set a tripod and all the light reflectors/diffusers you may need. Just avoid bumping the tripod legs against the twig on which the insect is sunbathing, since this sad accident will trigger a desperate escape such as a free fall to the ground. A focusing rail will help you position the camera without jarring the tripod legs.

As the day warms up, butterflies become more active and less tolerant of cameras. Many successful photographers artificially extend the warming up period by simply refrigerating their models for a few hours before releasing them back into their habitat. Photos of a fruit-eating butterfly on a beautiful flower--a place where it normally would not be found--may result from imposed cooling. However, refrigeration, while harmless to the insects, is avoided by artists who prefer to capture only natural behavior.

One hour after sunrise, photography using natural light and a tripod is still possible but requires a longer macro lens--ideally 200mm. If you find the purchase of the 200mm macro lens difficult to justify, particularly if you already possess a regular 200mm lens and/or a 100mm macro, less expensive options which will produce professional quality images are the two element close-up lenses, extension tubes, and teleconverters. These accessories will turn the telephoto lens you already own into a macro lens. (More information is provided below in the section on Macro Accessories.)

Depending on the weather conditions, two to three hours after sunrise a tripod will no longer be useful. It's time to fasten on your long telephoto, add a flash, and prepare for action -- both yours and theirs. If you move slowly, the butterflies will ignore you but will depart in search of food before you click. If you move quickly, they'll flee immediately. If you're blessed with luck and patience, you may catch some pleasing environmental portraits in which the insect is shown against a good fragment of its habitat. Pay attention to mating couples. Not only are their acrobatic skills amazing, but if you focus on the partner, they will also offer you a good chance to move close and fill the frame. To gain the maximum benefit from your outdoor butterfly hunt, keep an eye out for other insect subjects--such as dragonflies or damsel flies--as well as small animals. The technique for capturing these subjects is similar to the one I've just described. Again, less photographed subjects will attract plenty of attention.

Venturing into a Butterfly World

There are 700 species of butterflies in North America--not many compared with over 20,000 worldwide. So, when you feel you have good portraits of all your local insect neighbors, it's time to pay a visit to an aviary. Outdoor and indoor "butterfly farms" are scattered throughout America. Visit the North American Butterfly Association (NABA) for a list of contacts.

Check with each facility about its particular restrictions. For example, Butterfly World does not allow even monopods while many other farms allow tripods. At moderate additional cost, some aviaries offer special photo sessions. Rules can change without notice, so be sure to call close to the time of your trip. None of these places open before 8:00 a.m., so the butterflies will already be up and running even if you're the first guest of the day. You should still take advantage of the morning hours to avoid the crowds. In winter months, the butterflies will be considerably less active before 10:00 a.m. Keep in mind, however, that if you bring a cold camera into a glass house with an 80mF temperature and 80% humidity, the front element will fog so quickly and heavily, you won't be able to take any pictures for up to two hours. Fogging will still occur even if the camera is at a room temperature, but it will be less intense and should cease in about 20 minutes. Happily, all my equipment has survived aviary conditions many times without gathering condensation inside. However, as a simple precaution, I open my camera bags and turn my car heater up on the way to the aviary--hopefully for at least an hour before the shoot.

It's nice to have an option of using a tripod, but I seldom carry one into an aviary. At least 95% of my shots are taken with a hand-held camera and a flash. I have tried two flashes on a bracket, set at 1:2 ratio, to gain shadows and better detail. Unfortunately, this is a heavy setup, and my hands quickly lose the steadiness necessary to keep the subject in a very limited depth of field. I have better results with a single strong unit equipped with the LumiQuest bouncer. Black backgrounds look good with moths but appear artificial for butterflies. To avoid them, whenever possible I meter the background and choose an exposure one to two stops under my reading. This technique frequently requires an f-stop close to f5.6 and a very limited depth of field. Under these conditions, getting the whole winger in focus is the main challenge.

In an indoor aviary there are so many butterflies, you may choose a flower, sculptured angel, or other background feature and wait for a subject to land there in front of your lens. Some species are very "tame." Others will generously permit you to chase them for a while. But no matter. You'll get all the pictures you want, even with a macro lens 100mm.

Identifying Your Models

The final step in butterfly photography is proper identification of your subjects, which is much trickier than you might think. There are several excellent field guides to North American species. However, the wing pattern may vary significantly within a single species (e.g., the different number of eyespots on a Common Wood Nymph). To complicate matters even further, members of one species may physically mimic another poisonous species in order to appear less appetizing themselves, so be sure to not only examine the pictures in your field guide, but also study the descriptions. Most aviaries specialize in exotic butterflies, and these may be very difficult to identify. The aviary gift shop can provide answers to some of your questions, but most likely you'll need to contact an expert before you can complete your identifications with confidence. I make wallet-size prints from slides and send them to the aviary etymologist.

Whether you're working in an aviary or the backyard, shooting butterflies can be just as rewarding as any other kind of wildlife photography, and it won't break your budget. If you exercise good technique and patience, you'll be able to obtain professional quality results with few if any additions to your camera bag. Plus, you'll be delighted to discover that photographic images which reveal details of butterfly anatomy and behavior generate great impact.

Macro Accessories

To fill the frame with smaller butterflies, a magnification of 0.5x (or 1:2) is necessary. To obtain a "head-and-shoulders" portrait life-size, a (1.0x or 1:1) lens is desirable. Below are some numbers that should help you choose the right accessory for the job.

Three factors determine the effect of adding extension tubes to the lens: (1) length of extension, (2) lens focal length, and (3) lens built-in magnification (or closest focus).

Master Lens' focal length in mm ®

50

80

105

210

210

300

300

400

Closest Focus Distance of the Master Lens in inches ®

18

31

39

43

71

59

98

158

Length of Extension in mm ¯

Master Lens Magnification ®

0.14

0.13

0.14

0.25

0.14

0.25

0.14

0.11

   20

0.52

0.36

0.31

0.33

0.23

0.32

0.20

0.16

   27.5

0.67

0.46

0.38

0.37

0.26

0.34

0.23

0.18

   36

0.84

0.56

0.46

0.41

0.30

0.37

0.26

0.20

   52.5

1.17

0.77

0.62

0.49

0.38

0.43

0.31

0.24

  56

1.24

0.81

0.65

0.50

0.40

0.44

0.32

0.25

  80

1.72

1.11

0.88

0.62

0.51

0.52

0.40

0.31

Magnification obtained by adding extension tubes to some commonly used lenses.

Adding extension tubes causes significant loss of light of up to two stops, but your TTL metering system will compensate for this. However, I would recommend performing a few tests with your extension-lens-flash combo before going on a big shoot. Auto focus is lost with the use of most extension tubes.

You do not lose any light with close-up lenses. The two-element units can be mounted on any telephoto lens of up to 77mm filter size.

The magnification M achieved with close-up lenses may be approximated by the following formula:

DPxLFL
M = -------------- + LBM
1000

The 1.4x and 2x teleconverters multiply the focal length and the magnification by 1.4 and 2 respectively. The 1.4x takes away one and the 2x takes two stops of light. Nearly all teleconverters are not recommended for zoom lenses.

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You can see more of Jakub's work at http://academic.uofs.edu/faculty/jsj303/photo/gallery/index.html

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