Chasing butterflies
It’s Spring Down Under, which means flowers and of course, butterflies. Even in Autumn/Fall I am sure there are still some butterflies around. Things that flutter and fly, can be a challenge to capture. But with a little luck, some patience and a few key settings, you’ll be capturing some natural beauties in no time. Here are a few things to consider
Keep it simple
Shooting either Aperture Priority or Shutter Priority is a great starting point. I actually used AP mode on this shoot, but SP would have been great too. I mostly wanted a large aperture, f/2.8. But I wanted a fairly high shutter speed to freeze the action and keep them in focus. Keeping my shutter speed above 1/1250, up to around 1/3,000 or higher worked well most of the time. I also had Auto ISO set, with a min shutter speed.
Cairns Birdwing – Female
Keep things bright and colourful
Butterflies adore being in sunlight, so try to get the sun on the right side for shooting, and not have them in the shade or blown out. They also love bright flowers, blue, orange, pink and purple. So if you see a butterfly visiting some flowers, pick a flower and wait. A little patience can go a long way. The spray and pray approach doesn’t work very well, or so I have found.
Know your target
Different regions have different butterflies, so it’s handy to have a list or photographic reference chart of which species is around and what it looks like. We recently visited the Bribie Island Butterfly House and found out so much about these sweet and helpful insects.
Fun facts
While most facts are common like butterflies have four wings, they only live a few weeks (some up to nine months) and feed on nectar from flowers using a strawlike tongue called a proboscis. Butterflies mostly fly during the day, but did you know these fun facts?
Butterflies taste with their feet
Caterpillars are eating machines, while butterflies are egg-laying machines
Some butterflies, like the Monarch, can fly up to 4,000kms to escape the cold (eg Canada to Mexico)
Many butterflies never go to the toilet, they use up all they eat to make energy
Butterflies are cold-blooded
Butterfly eyes are made up of 6,000 lenses and can see ultra-violet
Varied Eggfly - male
Butterflies are wonderful, peaceful, beautiful, amazing, and awesome! Butterflies are a sign of joy, peace and happiness. But they are very fragile, so enjoy, and photograph, but please never touch them.
