The Author – Bart Busschots
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May
10
Photo of the Week 168 & 169 – Butterflies
Filed Under Photography on May 10, 2011 | Leave a Comment
Another double post this week, no real excuse for being late other than not being well. As always with double-posts, I’ve picked a theme, and since it’s been a long time since I shared a butterfly shot, that’s the theme I chose.
The first shot I’ve chosen is the best shot I’ve managed to get (so far) of the Ringlet Butterfly (Aphantopus hyperantus). Although this butterfly is listed in books as quite common, I’ve not come across many of them around Maynooth, and those few I have come across have been very restless and easily frightened, so they proved difficult to photograph. After much persistence I did manage to get this shot though, which I’m rather happy with.
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 55-200mm
- Exposure: 1/320 sec
- Focal Length: 200mm
- Focal Ratio: f/5.6
- ISO: 200
- Camera Mode: Full Manual
- Processing: Apart from the usual basic tweaks in Aperture this shot was also tweaked a little using Aperture’s Dodge & Burn plugin.
The second shot is of one of my favourite butterflies, the beautiful Common Blue Butterfly (Polyommatus icarus). These guys are the complete inverse of the Ringlet Butterfly. They are not at all easily frightened and will happily sit there and let you shoot away for ages. They also love basking in the late afternoon sun, which is the absolute perfect light for photography. I don’t know of any other species in Ireland that’s as friendly to photographers as the Common Blue.
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 55-200mm
- Exposure: 1/1000 sec
- Focal Length: 200mm
- Focal Ratio: f/5.6
- ISO: 400
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
Feb
21
Photo of the Week 158 – Back-lit Green-veined White
Filed Under Photography on February 21, 2011 | Leave a Comment
This week I thought I’d share another one of my butterfly shots form last summer. This guy was nice enough to sit still for quite some time, and allow me to get low and close behind him so that I was able to be eye-level with him while he was back-lit by the soft evening sun. I think this species, the Green-veined White (Pieris napi), is particularly suited to being back-lit because it emphasises the green veins in the wings.
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 55-200mm
- Exposure: 1/640 sec
- Focal Length: 200mm
- Focal Ratio: f/5.6
- ISO: 400
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
Jan
2
Photo of the Week 151 – Small Copper
Filed Under Photography on January 2, 2011 | Comments Off on Photo of the Week 151 – Small Copper
Following on form my recent retrospective on 2010 I thought I’d choose a shot for this week’s Photo of the Week that JUST missed out being included in that retrospective. 2010 was the first year that I managed to get some good shots of the Small Copper butterfly (Lycaena phlaeas) in Ireland. I had gotten a few shots of the species before, but in Belgium rather than Ireland. Obviously I’m delighted to have found a colony of Small Coppers along the Royal Canal, but I’m also really happy with the nice warm evening light I shot this in, and the nice dark un-cluttered background.
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 55-200mm
- Exposure: 1/1000 sec
- Focal Length: 200mm
- Focal Ratio: f/8
- ISO: 400
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
- Exposure Bias: -1.0ev
- Processing: tweaked slightly with Aperture’s built-in Dodge & Burn plugin
Nov
1
Photo of the Week 142 – The Common Blue
Filed Under Photography on November 1, 2010 | 1 Comment
One of my favourite muses this year has been the Common Blue butterfly (Polyommatus icarus). It’s just so beautiful, and this was a good year for them in Ireland. The summer’s long gone now, but it comes back to me vividly when I look at this shot.
This is definitely one of my favourite shots of the Common Blue from this year. In many ways this is very clichéd shot, these guys love sitting on grass seed stalks, so you see loads of shots of them in this pose. However, this ones stands out to me because of the wonderful soft evening light, and the strong contrast between the butterfly and the background. This was possible because this guy was friendly enough to sit on a grass stalk that was in sunlight, while the background behind it was in shade.
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 55-200mm
- Exposure: 1/400 sec
- Focal Length: 200mm
- Focal Ratio: f/8
- ISO: 400
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
- Exposure Bias: -0.7ev
Nov
15
Photo of the Week 91 – Comma Butterfly
Filed Under Photography on November 15, 2009 | 1 Comment
This is a shot I took back in April of this year while I was on holidays in Belgium. Common wisdom is that centred subjects are a bad thing in photography, and that they lead to boring photos. Because of that I spent a lot of time trying different crops on this image to come up with a shot where the composition is not centred, but in the end, I didn’t like any of the crops and decided to just ignore common wisdom for this shot. I like how the orange butterfly is surrounded by a see of green, and I think the diagonal orientation of the butterfly makes the composition work despite being centred.
The Comma Butterfly (Polygonia c-album) is exceptionally rare in Ireland. I does show up here from time to time in the very extreme south east in Wexford, but those are individuals who migrate over from the the UK if the summer is very good. In Belgium however, these wonderful butterflies are quite common.
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 55-200mm
- Exposure: 1/500 sec
- Focal Length: 200mm
- Focal Ratio: f/8
- ISO: 400
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
- Processing: the exposure, saturation & contrast were selectively tweaked in the butterfly using Aperture’s Dodge & Burn plugin
Oct
6
Photo of the Week 85 – Small Tortoiseshell Butterfly
Filed Under Photography on October 6, 2009 | 3 Comments
This is one of my favourite butterfly shots of the year. The season’s pretty much over now, so the changes are this will remain my favourite form the year. For a start, I think the Small Tortoiseshell (Aglais urticae) is one of the nicest species we have in Ireland, but this shot also illustrates why I love my Nikkor 55-200mm F3.5-5.6 zoom lens very well. When you’re shooting flowers or butterflies, you want the subject to be in sharp focus, and the background to be out of focus so that it doesn’t distract from the subject. You don’t want a busy complex background competing for the viewer’s eye. It’s that blurry background that gives shots that pro feel, sometimes called ‘the magazine look’.
This lens allows for a really shallow depth of field right in the sweet spot of the lens (around f8), and gives a wonderfully smooth and creamy bokeh (the out of focus areas). As lenses go, this is a cheap lens, I paid less than €300 for it a few years ago, and it’s come down in price since. A great value lens of you’re a Nikon DX shooter. There’s a new fancy VR (vibration reduction) version of this lens too, but TBH, I think VR is over-kill on this lens. If you can afford it, great, but I certainly don’t miss it. This is my work-horse lens, and I love it to bits.
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 55-200mm
- Exposure: 1/800 sec
- Focal Length: 200mm
- Focal Ratio: f/11
- ISO: 400
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
- Exposure Bias: -0.7ev
- Processing: This shot is pretty much as it came out of the camera. It has been cropped to improve the composition, and subtly tweaked in Aperture’s Dodge & Burn plugin to selectively improve the contrast on the butterfly.
Aug
5
Photo of the Week 76 – A Painted Lady
Filed Under Photography on August 5, 2009 | 1 Comment
Last week’s photo of the week was the result of serendipity – this weeks is the inverse, it’s the result of planning and dogged determination.
I was, and indeed still am, working on a long-term project to photography all 28 species of butterfly that live in Ireland (you can follow my progress here). I’d been keeping an eye on the different species I saw flying around each time I came outside – and the day before I’d seen that there were Painted Ladies on the wing – a species I was missing!
The time was right, the weather was right, so I chose a spot (the Junior Gardens on the St. Patrick’s College campus in Maynooth), grabbed my gear, and set out on my mission to capture a Painted Lady. I was in a great mood, full of anticipation, but I wasn’t expecting a quick result. Butterflies never do what you tell them, and rarely do what you’d like!
I waited. Then I waited some more. Then a little more. Finally, out of the corner of my eye I spotted one! A Painted Lady. But it didn’t sit still. It flew from flower to flower never landing long enough to even get a focus lock. Then it flew over the wall and out of sight. On the one hand it was a relief to see that my quarry was indeed around, and that I’d chosen my spot correctly. On the other hand, it was a frustrating near-miss. But I continued to wait. Slowly and watchfully walking around around and around the garden.
Eventually another Painted Lady came into the garden. This one was a little more co-operative, landing on flowers and feeding – but not in a very photogenic way. I shot about 25 shots of this guy, but none were good enough to make it here. I waited some more. Another one, this one was feeding on fabulous pink Daisies, and what’s more the Daisies were tall enough to throw the other plants near them totally out of focus when I got in close with the 55-200mm. The setting was perfect, vibrant colours and a lovely bokeh. BUT, my winged friend insisted on landing on low-down flowers, hence always being half-obsgtructed by one or more taller flower heads. I didn’t get the perfect shot, but I could now see it in my head. It was a Painted Lady on one of these pink Daisies with that fabulous green bokeh. all I had to do now was wait.
I stopped making my rounds of the garden and stood watch over my perfect setting. It took another half an hour, but in the end, I was rewarded with the shot you see here. In all I spent two hours trying to get this shot. I think it was time well spent! (don’t worry, I wasn’t bored, I had my iPhone with me and was listening to Photo Focus – doing as the jingle instructs – making pictures, not just taking pictures!)
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 55-200mm
- Exposure: 1/1600 sec
- Focal Length: 200mm
- Focal Ratio: f/8
- ISO: 400
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
- Exposure Bias: -0.7EV
Jun
14
Photo of the Week 67, 68 & 69 – Butterflies
Filed Under Photography on June 14, 2009 | 3 Comments
Between one thing and another I’ve missed the last two weekends so for the first time ever I’m doing a triple post for Photo of the week. Butterflies are an on-going photographic project of mine, so I thought I’d share three of my recent favourites with you all.
My first choice is a shot of a rather small butterfly, the Small Copper (Lycaena phlaeas). I much prefer the Flemish name for this little guy which translates as a Fire Butterfly, much more dramatic, and IMO, more appropriate! We have this species in Ireland too, but this shot was taken in Belgium when I spent a week there over Easter. This guy was surprisingly co-opperative, hanging around for a long time and letting me get close and get shots from lots of different angles. I got three really nice shots of this guy, but I’ve chosen this as my favourite because of the diagonal composition.
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 55-200mm
- Exposure: 1/400 sec
- Focal Length: 200mm
- Focal Ratio: f/8
- ISO: 400
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
The second shot I’ve chosen is of a pair of Small Whites (Pieris rapae) mating on a grass stalk. Again, this is a species we have in Ireland, but the shot was again taken in Belgium. I like a lot of things about this shot, the grass bokeh, the grass seed stalk poking into focus at the right edge, and the overall composition, but what really makes it for me is how it illustrates the different colours these butterflies can be. They’re always white on top, but underneath they range from green to yellow, sometimes much deeper greens that in this shot.
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 55-200mm
- Exposure: 1/800 sec
- Focal Length: 200mm
- Focal Ratio: f/8
- ISO: 400
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
- Exposure Bias: -1.0EV
Finally, my last choice is a recent shot I took here in Ireland on the section of towpath along the Royal Canal between Pike’s Bridge and Deey bridge between Maynooth & Leixlip. Much of the towpath has a gravel pathway along it, but this bit doesn’t, it’s pure nature for about a mile, almost constantly surrounded by trees, and passing through a cutting. You really feel like you’re out in the middle of nowhere, even though you’re no more than 10 minutes cycle from Maynooth or Leixlip. There are also much fewer people walking and cycling along the stretch, so you get to see much more wildlife. Like the Small Copper earlier, this guy also sat still for ages and let me get close and get lots of different angles. I picked this one as my favourite because I find the composition pleasing, and like how you can see both the top and underside of his wings, showing the cool patterns underneath, and the vibrant orange tip that gives this species it’s name, Orange Tip (Anthocharis cardamines). I also like the strange grassy flower he’s feeding on, Ribwort Plantain (Plantago lanceolata).
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 55-200mm
- Exposure: 1/1000 sec
- Focal Length: 200mm
- Focal Ratio: f/8
- ISO: 400
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
- Exposure Bias: -1.0EV
Mar
17
Photo of the Week 56 – Green-Veined White on Lavender
Filed Under Photography on March 17, 2009 | Leave a Comment
Without a doubt the most common butterflies in Ireland are the so-called “Cabbage Whites”. These break down into a few related species, but they are all very similar. Just because there are a lot of them around though, doesn’t mean they’re not beautiful little insects. This particular shot is of a Green-Veined White (Pieris napi), and what I love about it is the colours around the butterfly. Being mostly white, there isn’t much colour in the actual butterfly, but with the butterfly feeding on a vividly colourful Lavender flower, and with lots of lush green in the background, the shot is still full of colour.
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 55-200mm
- Exposure: 1/1000 sec
- Focal Length: 200mm
- Focal Ratio: F5.6
- ISO: 800
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
Nov
16
Photo of the Week 39 – Autumn Butterfly
Filed Under Photography on November 16, 2008 | 1 Comment
When you think of butterflies you generally think of bright colours and pretty patterns. The Speckled Wood (Pararge aegeria) certainly doesn’t spring to mind, what with it being small and brown. However, I’ve developed a real soft spot for these little fellas. There is something about the texture of their wings that I really like, and the patterns on their mostly brown wings can be very pleasing. They are also among the smallest of the butterflies we have in Ireland. As their name suggests they tend to hang out in wooded areas where they are very well camouflaged. I got a lot of pictures of these guys that I really like but this one is my very favourite because to me it just captures the spirit of autumn perfectly (even if I do say so myself).
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 55-200mm
- Exposure: 1/500 sec
- Focal Length: 200mm
- Focal Ratio: F11
- ISO: 400
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
- Exposure Compensation: -1.0