Brimming with colour

These three Brimstone butterflies were photo'd last week in south east Turkey. I managed to snatch a few hours early morning whilst the sun was low and bright. The upper two yellow butterfly images are the male and the whitish-lime coloured individual is the female.

Butterflies are especially difficult to photograph. They are frustrating in that a number of factors are conspiring against you; The butterfly is usually moving and restless, a slight breeze creates movement and your own arms tire quickly, creating even more tremble. The depth of field needs to be high enough to capture the correct focus but low enough to blurr the background. However, the greater depth of field darkens the image so exposure requires compensating. The list of problems goes on.

This type of image above is my kind of style that I try ro achieve, eg. a focussed subject but with highly blurred and uncluttered background. Not always easy but this is what I try to achieve. Andy Rouse recommends a slight repositioning of the tripod which creates a very different picture in macro mode. I tried the technique last week and guess what, he's right.

EXIF Detail: Aperture priority. F/10. ISO 100. Exposure -0.7EV. Shutter speed 1/160s. WB Cloudy. Focal length 500mm. Distance from subject 2m. Image cropped in Photoshop.