Somedays you just have to make your own sunshine, so I decided to drive up to the Pacific Science Center with Lael to see their Butterfly Garden. 80 degrees felt just about perfect. After all these gray, drab days I was delighted to finally point my lens as at something colorful.
And it’s hard to imagine anything much more colorful than exotic butterflies flitting among equally exotic flowers, which is not to say that it’s easy to get a good picture. Unfortunately, when I start choosing photos I inevitably find that shooting this close with a 70-200mm lens under less-than-perfect light conditions leads to parts of most photos being blurry. You’re left looking for the shots where the blurry areas complement rather than distract from the picture as a whole, but you very seldom find that “perfect” shot you’re always seeking.
In order to find a razor sharp image, you have to settle for a pose like this that really has about as much appeal to me as those butterflies pinned to a board.
I much prefer candid shots where the wings are at different depths and are apt to be in motion during the shot,
perched on beautiful flowers,
or ones where the color of the flowers complements the colors of the butterfly.
