The Butterflies Finally Have Returned!!

pathfinder · August 11, 2005

I have been waiting for butterflies to show up in Nightingale's garden all summer. But without much luck. Just today I have begun to see several species showing up, so I went on a safari in my back yard to see what I could find. I shot these with a Tamron 180 macro on a 12mm extension tube with paired electronic flash units similar to TML's lighting rig, but I am using plamps rather than a wimberly bracket.

A yellow swallowtail on a yellow butterfly bush is my first offering.

Here is a closer look at a swallowtail feeding...

A skipper upside down on a butterfly bush with a coiled proboscis

The ever popular Painted Lady

And another skipper again

GREAPER · August 11, 2005

Nice shots Pathfinder.

I am suprised. We have had butterflies here for a while.

bfjr · August 11, 2005

Excellent B-Fly's
Glad there back from where ??

tmlphoto · August 11, 2005

Nice set Path. Butterflys can be hard to shoot. We have alot of those skippers down my way. I think it may be a silver spotted skipper. Was #1 underexposed. I recognize that striated look to the background from some of my underexposed shots. Some times I think it looks kind of cool. The lightiing looks very good on all of them, very natural looking. Thanks for sharing these.

pathfinder · August 11, 2005

bfjr wrote:

Excellent B-Fly's
Glad there back from where ??

Not sure where they went Ben, just glad they are back .

Gives me something to look for in my backyard besides other bugs.....

pathfinder · August 11, 2005

tmlphoto wrote:

Nice set Path. Butterflys can be hard to shoot. We have alot of those skippers down my way. I think it may be a silver spotted skipper. Was #1 underexposed. I recognize that striated look to the background from some of my underexposed shots. Some times I think it looks kind of cool. The lightiing looks very good on all of them, very natural looking. Thanks for sharing these.

I can't find the raw file for that shot, but sometimes my flashes have not completely recycled when I shoot and I get an under exposed frame. In Bridge this is harder to see because the ARC adjusts them before I see them. I suspect you are right about it.

Have you looked into the external battery back for Canon's flashes? - I find I miss some frames waiting for the flashes to recycle and I am using NiMH AAs now. Butterflies don't wait for flashes to recycle very well for me. LVs comment about shooting in the morning before they have warmed up works if you can stay at home at that time, but I have to be in the office early in the morning.

Thanks for looking and commenting.

MuskyDude · August 11, 2005

Very cool shots PF, love the comps and colors!!!

AJ

pathfinder · August 11, 2005

MuskyDude wrote:

Very cool shots PF, love the comps and colors!!!

AJ

Thanks Aj.

Lord Vetinari · August 12, 2005

Great series PF, esp like#3

gus · August 12, 2005

Nice light PF

ajgauthier · August 12, 2005

nice! I like #2 (feeding) the best, not sure why it just struck me. We have that traveling "live exotic butterfly" exhibit coming to the Botanical Gardens in October, I can't wait! (by then I may havea 20D!!!)

Adrienne

tmlphoto · August 12, 2005

pathfinder wrote:

I can't find the raw file for that shot, but sometimes my flashes have not completely recycled when I shoot and I get an under exposed frame. In Bridge this is harder to see because the ARC adjusts them before I see them. I suspect you are right about it.

Have you looked into the external battery back for Canon's flashes? - I find I miss some frames waiting for the flashes to recycle and I am using NiMH AAs now. Butterflies don't wait for flashes to recycle very well for me. LVs comment about shooting in the morning before they have warmed up works if you can stay at home at that time, but I have to be in the office early in the morning.

Thanks for looking and commenting.

I do have the Canon external battery pack, but don't routinely take it out on "bug shoots" because of the extra weight. I have also had the occasional shot missed because of battery recycling. I did change to 2300mA rechargables though. The extra battery pack is not too heavy and will fit in your pocket or on your belt, so it may be worth it.

pathfinder · August 12, 2005

Lord Vetinari wrote:

Great series PF, esp like#3

Thanks LV. I like the nice bokeh of the grey background and the detal of the proboscis that is usually not caught in such a nice curl.

pathfinder · August 12, 2005

Humungus wrote:

Nice light PF

Thanks 'gus, except for he first frame where the flash misfired, they are all lit by electronic flash. Glad you liked them.

:

pathfinder · August 12, 2005

ajgauthier wrote:

nice! I like #2 (feeding) the best, not sure why it just struck me. We have that traveling "live exotic butterfly" exhibit coming to the Botanical Gardens in October, I can't wait! (by then I may havea 20D!!!)

Adrienne

Thank you Adrienne. Here is another feeding shot just for you

Higgmeister · August 12, 2005

Hi Path,
Quite the set, and really nice too. I've yet to capture a butterfly. I get somewhat near and they fly away. It's usually pretty windy here during my shooting times so that's my excuse and I'm sticking with it:D.

Thanks for sharing those that I cannot capture,
Chris

pathfinder · August 12, 2005

Higgmeister wrote:

Hi Path,
Quite the set, and really nice too. I've yet to capture a butterfly. I get somewhat near and they fly away. It's usually pretty windy here during my shooting times so that's my excuse and I'm sticking with it:D.

Thanks for sharing those that I cannot capture,
Chris

I have previously discussed that butterflies are not always as cooperative as I would prefer.:D Apparently you have had similar experiences.

They really do not like a shadow passing over them; and they seem to prefer a slower approach. Earlier morning hours when they are cooler they can be more accomodating too. They frequently fly away when I approach, but if you wait awhile, they may fly right back. I'm still hoping/wanting to get a butterfly in flight shot, but that is not going to be easy.
Thanks for stopping by and looking and saying Hi

DavidTO · August 12, 2005

fantastic set

can you describe your flash bracket in more detail?

pathfinder · August 12, 2005

DavidTO wrote:

fantastic set

can you describe your flash bracket in more detail?

Hi Dave,

I use a L-Braket on the body and the 180 macro has a lens foot. To the lens foot I attach a RRS telephoto lens bracket that is an arch shape around the barrel of the lens ( The reason I use this is because it was already sitting in my equipment drawer ) To this I attach a Plamp and use the distal end of the plamo to hold a flash unit from the Canon MT-24EX on the right side of the subject.
On the left side of the camera I attach another straight rail from RRS ( which I already had as it is the rail part of the rotating pano attachment) and to this I attach a 2nd plamp holding the left flash from the Canon MT-24ex. I use the flashes in ETTL.

I cover both flash units with a curve of 5x7 white paper taped on with Scotch tape ( fancy stuff here ) for my diffusers.

Maybe I'll get a chance to photgraph the setup and post it here later.

DavidTO · August 12, 2005

pathfinder wrote:

Maybe I'll get a chance to photgraph the setup and post it here later.

That would be great, because I'm totally lost by that description.

And maybe it's even less about what you have, but what is it that I would need? Then I could shop around and dig around in my drawers.

pathfinder · August 12, 2005

DavidTO wrote:

That would be great, because I'm totally lost by that description.

And maybe it's even less about what you have, but what is it that I would need? Then I could shop around and dig around in my drawers.

:D

The set up I use is kludged together from stuff I have aquired for photography over the last few years. If you were to go out and purchase it, it is too expensive to justify - but I gradually aquired it over the course of 3 or 4 years and most of it was sitting idle (temporarily) in my equipment drawer for other purposes - bird shooting - panoramic shooting - portrait shooting - etc. I'll try to get some photos so you can see how I hze kludged it together.

I admired TMLs posts where he used a pair of Wimberly macro brackets and 2 electronic flash units - a 580ex and a 420ex I believe with an off camera extension cord to the 580ex. But the Wimberly brackets run almost $400, and I kludged my own way to accomplish what the Wimberly macro brackets allow with what I already had.

The MT-24ex is expensive, but really works quite nicely. I did not like it at all when I first got it as I just tried to use it with the bracket Canon sends with it, but that bracket that fits on the front of the macro lens does not create anywhere near enough relief between the flash and the cameras shooting axis. The plamps allow nice directional sidelighting to take place. This is the secret demonstrated by TML and LV so nicely. Once again, it is not the subject, but the lighting, that creates interesting images. And it is so easy to do in the macro world - you can hold the entire studio in one hand - a strong hand - it weighs 8-12 pounds I suspect.

Higgmeister · August 12, 2005

DavidTO wrote:

Then I could shop around and dig around in my drawers.

Now David,
That's more info than I need and way too personal

.

OK, time to step up out of the gutter. :tiptoe:hide

Chris

pathfinder · August 13, 2005

DavidTO wrote:

fantastic set

can you describe your flash bracket in more detail?

David,
I spent a few minutes this evening gathering some photos and URLs to desribe the lighting system I am using for most of my macro shots. As I said, I would not rec folks duplicate this system as it would be expensive to buy all at once. I cobbled it together with parts of stuff in my parts drawer that I had purchased at various times in the past. I already owned a telephoto flash extension bracket from RRS that I bought last year for shooting at birds. I bought a Pano bracket set from RRS before I went to the Yosemite Shoot Out. I had some plamps from http://www.naturephotographers.net

So here is the first overall shot - the rig weighs 10 pounds - I weighed it to check - Yes, it gets heavy after a little while.

You can see the two plamps holding the two flash heads at the top of the image. The plamp on the right clamps onto the telephoto flash bracket mount for a flash unit. The plamp on the left clamps onto a Pano bracket that is attached to the vertical portion of an L-bracket.

Here is a close up of left side of the camera from the shooter's point of view. You can see the L-bracket and the attachment of the pano bracket to the L-bracket. The pano bracket extends along the left side of the lens and allows the left clamp to clamp to it. The telephoto flash extension bracket attaches beneath the lens to the lens foot plate.

In the third photo you can see the attachment of the telephoto lens extension bracket to the lens foot.

Information about the pano backet can be found here http://www.reallyrightstuff.com/pano/index.html I bought the pano bracket set for its ability to improve the stitching between frames. The use I am using for macros is a kludge that seems to work for me.

Telephoto flash extension brackets can be seen here
http://www.reallyrightstuff.com/tutorials/telephoto/index.html

and

http://www.kirkphoto.com/brackets.html#telefb

L-brackets are the secret to making a tripod a joy to use. All of my camera bodies wear one. Information can be found at RRS and Kirk Enterprises.
http://www.reallyrightstuff.com/tutorials/L_plates/index.html

http://www.kirkphoto.com/lbrackets.html

Plamps can be found at www.naturephotograhers.net and wwwbirdsasart.com

Essentially what this system creates is a studio two flash system - they could be a pair of 420EXs, or other Canon or Sigma flashes that work via ETTL. An aluminum bracket could be fashioned out of sheet metal or even wood perhaps. If two seprate flashes are used, an off camera hot shoe EETL cord will be needed also.

Here are three more shots with this system from today

Tiger swallowtail

painted lady

another skipper

David_S85 · August 14, 2005

Holy freaking mother of...
I can't argue with the great results you get PF, but if I was a bug, and I saw that gigantic rig (which looks kinda like a monster bug with huge antennae) heading in my direction, I would be soooo outta there!

:yikes

DavidTO · August 14, 2005

Thanks, PF. Awesome detail on your rig. I appreciate it. Gives me a much better sense of what I need to do.

Save money, that is!

Seriously, thanks for going to the trouble.

pathfinder · August 14, 2005

David_S85 wrote:

I can't argue with the great results you get PF, but if I was a bug, and I saw that gigantic rig (which looks kinda like a monster bug with huge antennae) heading in my direction, I would be soooo outta there!

:yikes

They do sometimes, but remarkably, if you are patient, they frequently come right back. Dragonflies are the same way - even after flying away, if you are patient and move slowly, they frequently will return. This little guy let me get right within 6 inches of his face over and over with two flashes going off for each shot..... Sometimes. bugs aren't really that smart.

David_S85 · August 14, 2005

Just darned incredible. Really.

The bugs run from me when I'm about 100 feet away. Must be using the wrong deodorant or somethin'.

The Butterflies Finally Have Returned!!

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