The Basic’s

Common Blue

nikon d3s, 105vr lens,1/125@f8,iso400, tripod.

 The winds had finally died down enough yesterday for me to attempt some butterfly photography. How do you go about achieving results like the image above. Well, understanding behaviour is very important. Butterflies in general go to roost late afternoon/early evening. Its then a small matter of looking very carefully in suitable habitat for butterflies poised on grasses and flower heads. It does take some practice to get your ‘ eye in’ but a good trick is to get on your knees so has to get into the butterflies world and just start looking very slowly and carefully. One thing to do is not rush about, just take your time. Of course you can also look in early morning but time will be against you, as soon as the sun starts to warm the butterflies up they will be of ‘buzzing’ about ( thats my term), but quality image can be achieved. If there’s cloud cover in the morning you should get more time to find and photograph. Another key to success is to place your camera parallel to the subject. You can then use a wider aperture to soften the background out if you like, this will also maximise the depth of field you are using and the butterfly will be nice and sharp with a nice diffused background, simple. If you are unsure if the camera back is parallel to the subject just stand back and look at the relative position of the camera, you need to be very precise. If the camera back is not  parallel to the butterfly you will fail to achieve an image such as above. So a few points to remember;

1 time of day

2 don’t rush

3 camera parallel to subject

4 Have fun and enjoy these wonderful creatures!

Being Brave

Gatekeeper

I have thought of using the tone mapping software available and applying it to nature images this coming year. Its seem quite successful on single raw images when the software  is applied. I will have to be on top of my game if I am going to use bracketing to expand the tonal range. Getting 3 or 5 images perfect with butterflies in particular will be a big challenge, but it could be a new way of approaching an area of nature photography inundated with wonderful images. I am sure some photographers are using this technique already but I am going to give a go myself. Past techniques to reveal all  the details included use of a small amount of fill flash, this be a technique of the past. All depends if the subject will remain still for the duration. I just hope we have a great butterfly year so I can have lots of chances, time will tell. I might just end up using the single shot technique and applying the tone mapping. Spring time is coming and its time to start planning what you would like to do in the coming year. Butterflies can be on the wing for just a short time so it helps to have your brain in gear and get snapping. I have also tone mapped some moth images which also work well ,so I will blow away the dust of the moth trap for the summer time. Birds, well to date all the images I have tone mapped just look terrible so for now I will stick to butterflies and moths. Hope this gives you some idea on being creative and not just being a sausage making machine like everyone else! Change the way you think about subjects and software.

Privet Hawkmoth

 

Frit Fever

Small Pearl-boarded Fritillary

canon 1d mark1v, 180 macro, 1/100@f10,iso250

Just returned from a wonderful few days holiday with the family from the  beautiful area around Arnside, near Morecambe. Enjoyed some wonderful weather apart from the journey there and back which was like driving through a wall of water. The area around Arnside holds some great reserves for bird and butterfies. One of the best was the Gait burrows nature reserve which has some great habitat for butterflies.  I had the good fortune to see three new species at this reserve, Duke of Burgundy, Small Pearl-boarded Fritillary and Pearl-boarded Fritillary. The ‘Dukes’ were at the end of their flight period although a few were spotted I didn’t manage any photo’s. I returned on another day and was rewarded with this image of a Small Pearl-boarded Fritillary. I didn’t get any views of the underside for Id but with the help of a various guides and internet finally confirmed  the image.

Spring Copper

Small Copper

canon 1d mark1v, 180 macro, 1/60@f11, iso250

After spotting several small Copper’s on the wing yesterday , I invited a friend to come over to my local today to photograph this spring butterfly. Photographed a couple more warblers in the wonderful morning light, the high winds made photographing the warblers tricky but managed a few keepers. Moved on to relocate the Small Copper’s which were found along a track within the woods the previous day. Not as many as the before but we both managed some images of this glorious male  basking in the overcast weather.  Later in the year there will be many more on the wing, but great to get the butterfly season moving along with the Small Copper and to blow the dust off the 180 macro!

Short-tailed Blue

An amazing find by me while on a recent family holiday in the county of Dorset. The wind had been blowing for almost the whole holiday with grey days coupled with rain and some sun. However on wednesday 5th of August some fine sunny weather with light winds gave me a chance to film some butterflies on Portland. Its was the late afternoon when myself and the family decided to visit Broadcroft Quarry on Portland to try and find some roosting butterflies. After finding and filming a Brown Argus and some chalkhill Blues I was more than happy. The wind had started to gain in strength, for butterfly photography anyway,  I wanted to capture some images of the Pulpit rock on the tip of Portland, we decided to leave the quarry. It was while walking back that I spotted a very light  blue butterfly lift from some dense grasses. I thought I would take a few record shots and id it later. The wind was really blowing by now and I only managed a few shots, only one came out sharp. The butterfly flew into some even denser vegetation and I lost sight of it. I never even thought any more about it until doing some editing today from the holiday. I nearly deleted this image but I noticed a short tail coming from the wings, a quick check raised my pulse and I knew that it was something different. A few frantic emails and phone calls to a friend confirmed my find. A Short-tailed Blue, very rare in Britain with only 17 previous sightings made it a very good find. Just goes to show never delete images until you are sure about its id. The butterfly gods were looking down on me that day! Canon 1ds mark 111 and 180 macro.

Short-tailed Blue

A Summers Eve’

The sound of Skylark’s singing in the late evening light, willow warbler’s darting about hedgerows, a grassland filled with roosting butterflies. What more could you ask for? Well, if only the breeze which keeps rocking the perched Common Blue butterfly would just stop blowing, maybe the curse of macro snapper’s everywhere. Its still fun to be outdoors with nature even if the one little problem of the wind is making me strain through the viewfinder ,waiting for a moment of stillness to capture an image. Common Blues seem to be everywhere, good numbers now will hopefully mean a glut in the late summer. The time when I normally film this species locally, time will tell. This image was captured towards the end of the evening when I decided to try for some nice backlighting, just to add some atmosphere to the image. This is worth trying when you’ve’ filled your boots’ with  standard front lighted images.  I can still hear the skylark’s singing now while typing this blog and see the this butterfly swaying in the wind.. 

 

Start Of The Skipper’s

These tiny butterflies which start to appear in late spring are a real indicator that the butterfly season has began, and its time to blow the dust of the macro lens and get down, and get some dirty knees. Its a good sign when I walk into the house and the word’s ” what have you been upto!’ followed by ‘I had better scrub those”. Summer is finally here. These small butterflies can easily be missed as they dart around chasing anything that moves into their patch. I like to photograph them early morning on there preferred perch from the previous night’s roost. Of course the wind always is blowing which make for sharp images a real task. Once they get warmed up they can be a great challenge to approach. 

I was really pleased to see Dingy and Grizzled Skipper in good numbers following the nice warm weather of late. The previous year I had failed to capture any images due to the poor wet weather. Enjoy the following images and keep a good lookout next time you are walking in some grassland they are easily overlooked. All images captured on canon 1DS mark 111 , 180 macro lens and of course a tripod( dirty knees).

 

Dingy Skipper

 

Grizzled Skipper

Grizzled Skipper

Bad Blogger Returns

Yes, I know its been a long time. Winter and spring seem to have passed by very quickly , although I managed to nail some pretty nice images over the period. Two new species of gulls, a diver and red necked grebe are just some of the birdlife which I’ve enjoyed filming. This doesn’t sound much for todays’ species ticking photographers’ that patrol out there at the moment, but I am very pleased, quality still counts a lot in my world and will continue into the future, the number of species dosen’t matter.. A wonderful return to western Ireland in February to film the huge variety of gulls which winter along  shores, its was great to have friend along to enjoy the show and we both became expert bread throwers in the process, great fun and I even made time to enjoy my first guiness, very nice! Both of us filled our boots with gull images and I finally filmed a Kumlien’s gull which I missed the previous year. I missed the great snowfall over this winter through various reasons not filming anything, but finally managed to do some sledging with my daughter which was just great fun and just as rewarding. Image updates are on the rspb-images website, just type “malcolm hunt” in the image search.

A wonderful holiday in Spain at easter was amazing, so much wildlife and very nice people( a future blog on its way) so different from the UK, the numbers of common birds like corn bunting, swallows, swifts, to name just a few makes our countryside seem like green deserts. Anyway the butterfly and dragonfly season has kicked in with some great sunny weather and I have photographed Dingy and Grizzled Skipper and Common Blues to date and a nice Broad-bodied Chaser at a local pond was a nice bonus.

Another development has been a new computer, at last an applemac pro with some amazing new software, ‘capture one pro’ has made life so much more enjoyable. My old two computers are now mothballed, it was a real time consuming affair to process images and blogging, one of the reasons I stopped blogging. Buy an apple-mac they are just amazing tools to work with, you will not regret it . Time to go I’ve got one months free Kerrang to watch and I am loving it. Here are a couple of Common Blue images to enjoy, photographed locally with a canon 1ds mark 111 and a 180 macro.  

Silver spotted Skipper

Photographed on some chalk hillside during some fine sunny weather. Watching these skippers chase anything that strays into their patch is amazing. Bees, butterflies and any other skipper just is sent packing in a blink of an eye. Just the size of a fingernail but with the a big attitude.

Marsh Fritillary

Having battled strong winds and harsh sunlight last year, I made sure I made time for a return visit to photograph this species in May. Arriving in this wonderful woodland, deep in the middle of Lincolnshire. We made the short walk to the established  colony photographing three species of moths along the way. A nice a reward was Gold Swift moth perched on some nice green grass. On arriving at the meadow it became obvious there were few on the wing, probably from the cloudy conditions. However my friend soon located some fine specimens low in the grasses and we both managed to obtain some great images in fresh condition. I trialed the VR function on my Nikon macro and it worked very well. A very useful tool in some condtions and I look forward to more success with this very sharp lens.