Butterfly Reserve - February 1st, 2006

Shot with: Canon 70-200 F/4 L on Canon Rebel XT

Technical chatter: All of these shots were handheld. "That's easy in bright daylight!" you might say, and you'd be right. But remember these are capricious little buggers and they like to be around trees in the sun, which means a big range of shade and bright light. Most of these were shot at ISO400 or ISO800 so that I could get up to 1/1000 range to eliminate camera shake and freeze movement. Some that look sharp here aren't actually very sharp in reality. All have a standard level of unsharp mask applied. Many are also color balanced to add a pseudo-micro warm filter feel. But really, the gorgeous things just sell themselves.

The story goes: Andre mentioned the awesomeness of the monarch butterflies swarming around the nearby butterfly preserve. Perfect chance to play around with my new DSLR setup. I walked around and soon found gigantic clusters of butterflies flying every which way, almost hitting me in the face. It was quite the party (see above).

It took maybe 10 minutes of walking around slowly before I got to the first cluster. They were all sunbathing near a brook. There was a sign there in case you can't figure it out. There's also a butterfly on the sign. He's not nailed on or anything. Was just hanging out there...

There were lots of butterflies. I can't be empahtic enough about this. This was not even the liveliest place.

Let's get down to it. Zoom in all the way and try not to shake the camera!

Glamour shot.

There were a few other photographers there. Real ones I mean, not fake ones like me. One had a butterfly clinging on to a ring on her zoom lens (real photographers make their subjects come to them!). I hurriedly grabbed a few shots, grossly overexposing in the process but at least I knew how to push the shutter button. This is the best I could do in color with a few minutes of PS.

Slightly better in black and white, I think. It still screams "overexposed!" but the person is bright and the camera/butterfly is dark. Lends more balance to the pic. That and it's artsy cause it's in black 'n white foo. Oh well, lesson learned. To be applied the day after tomorrow. I'm going back armed with a tripod! >)