I’ve been wanting to shoot some butterflies on wildflowers rather the cultivated zinnias I have been focused on. I found a wild thistle patch at a local park. Seems like Gulf Fritillary butterflies are just about the only species I am seeing these days. Showing in good numbers here.
Canon 90D, 70-200mm f2.8L IS II, 1.4x TC
ISO 640, f16, 1/400s, hand held
Any comments appreciated.
Allen, this is just gorgeous. I love the composition, how the flower leans inward, and the butterfly is positioned on the edge of it. Wonderful color and details in both the butterfly and the flower. A nice soft background, making the flower and butterfly pop out. Well done.
Hi Allen, I love this photograph and I am happy to see that the 90D is working out well since I just got one. What was the 70-200 set at mm wise. At F/16 I am assuming you were pretty close or zoomed in at 200. I have opened up more these days but after seeing this maybe I need to go back the F/16. I might have aim a little more to the left to open the left area a bit and close off the right mainly as a direction the butterfly came from, but the composition is awesome so maybe not a good idea what I was thinking. Butterflies are so jumpy that there is little time to think about things like that.
@Shirley_Freeman, @Dean_Salman,
Thanks Shirley, Dean.
Dean, I shot this at 240mm with the teleconverter attached. The background is a very distant stand of trees so I felt comfortable stopping down to f16. Yes, the rather loose crop is intentional as I wanted to show some of the thistle stem and include space on the right where the butterfly is facing. I have other images in this series where I shot tighter that I may post later on.
Thanks Allen, I might try that sometime
Allen: Marvelous perch and I actually prefer the under wing of fritillaries over the top wing view that you showed on the zinia. The BG works so well on both images. Many kudos. >=))>
Allen, these thistles are great butterfly attractors in the fall (in spite of the fact that most places classify them as invasive and push for eradication). The sharpness in both the thistle and the bf look great.
Awesome detail throughout, Allen. That lens combination really works well for this kind of image.
As an aside, how do you like the 90D for birds?
@Dennis_Plank
Dennis, I like the resolution/detail of the 90D files but for me the jury is still out on birds in flight. I need more testing with the camera but I can’t say I fully trust the auto focus for such action captures as of yet.
