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Piano keys butterfly,  Heliconius melpomene   Fort Lauderdale Butterfly World I have written a series of 8 blogs on how to photograph butterflies.  You can find them at these links: 1.  Where and when to find butterflies. 2.  Orientation of butterflies to get better shots. 3.  Camera, Lens, and exposure choices for photographing butterflies. 4.  How to get close to butterflies without disturbing them. 5.  Butterfly gardens - a great place to photograph butterflies. 6.  Identifying butterflies. 7.  Photographing moths. 8.  Using flash to get better photographs of butterflies. Other recent blogs on butterflies Essex skipper Margined white butterfly Silvery blue butterfly Admiral butterflies Giant atlas moth I have dozens of posts on butterflies dating back many years.  Search for them on my various blog sites. Thanks for looking. Eric Svendsen      www.ericspix.com

Sulphur butterfly photo taken with 70-200 f/2.8 lens, 1.7x teleconverter, and flash. Flash is one of the best ways to improve an image.  It allows you to shoot when the light is poor, it improves contrast and saturation, it removes or reduces shadows significantly, and it can freeze action in some circumstances. Although flash is not needed for many situations, I think you will find that it makes a difference.  To explore this, take two photos, one with flash and one without.  Compare them to verify things.  It may be as simple as turning a flash on, usually a flash requires a few specific considerations for it to work well and improve a shot to its potential.  Below I list some of those issues. Built-in flashes typically are neither strong enough or located high enough above the camera to adequately expose an image.  A long lens and a close subject will mean that the lens actually blocks some of the light producing a lens silhouette.  And even if the ...

Great ash sphynx moth.  Ten lined hawk moth.  Polyphemus moth Elephant hawk moth.  Eyed sphynx moth.  Garden tiger moth. Ok, Ok.  Moths aren't butterflies.  And truthfully, they don't behave like butterflies in a few very important ways.  First of all, they tend to lie with their wings flat against their bodies while butterflies keep them vertical above their bodies.  A lot of this is due to their habits where butterflies are diurnal (during the day) and moths nocturnal (during the night) or even crepuscular (dawn and dusk).  Butterflies keep their wings vertical to help radiate heat while moths keep them pressed against their bodies to help keep heat in.  In both cases it is a form of thermoregulation designed to maintain internal temperatures within an optimal range. Moths also tend to be less conspicuously coloured than butterflies and have patterns and colours to better blend into their surroundings.  They are hard to find durin...

The painted lady butterfly is found on every continent except Australia and Antarctica. Identifying butterflies can range from very easy to near impossible, and rarely impossible as it ends up being a new species.  Caterpillars can also be identified but tends to be difficult as information on that topic is not always available or reliable.  I intend on sticking with adult identification as this is where I have had success and can make a few relevant suggestions. Field guides are an important source for aiding identification and I have several of them.  Mine tend to be by province (British Columbia) or region (Pacific Northwest), which makes things a bit more difficult if I am out of that area.  Fortunately, many species have a broader range than the limitations of the texts and I find they help even if I am some distance away.  Another issue is that not all species are covered as minor ones may be excluded and there are always the accidentals to contend with....

Giant owl butterfly, Victoria Butterfly Garden, Victoria, BC Butterfly gardens and conservatories are popular tourist attractions and can be found in many cities throughout North America.  In Canada there are four and at least another sixteen in the states.  Then there are the exhibits at zoos.  These are places you can go and walk amongst some of the largest and most beautiful Lepidoptera there are on the planet.  The price is reasonable and there are dozens of species and thousands of butterflies flitting about.  And the best part is that they are used to people - one may even land on you! Some may scoff at the notion of shooting here because you are not in the wild and doing the groundwork required to capture photos of these marvellous creatures.  It's like shooting fish in a barrel, or in this case, butterflies in a room, but isn't that exactly the point?  It is a great place to practice your craft and to play with settings and compositions in real...

Left:  Me with my camera and long lens.  Right:  Western Tiger Swallowtail, 2014, Vancouver Island. Butterflies, like all insects, have two compound eyes, each eye containing thousands of ommatidia, each one ending with a facet at the eye's surface.  Each eye sends a tiny image to the lepidopteran brain and the group of them work together to give the organism some context as to its surroundings.  However, there is no ability to discern objects beyond colour and movement. Although they can see almost completely around them, their perception is limited to motion and colour.  Their colour vision covers a wider gamut than ours does as they can pick up shades of ultraviolet.  Many flowers, appearing white to us, have stunning details when viewed with UV sensitive media.  The colours of many flowers is one of the cues that leads butterflies to the waiting blossoms.  Motion is a different story. Quick motions are picked up immediately, but so are ch...