Most of the life cycle of a small tortoiseshell butterfly

[tpe]

I think this guy is a "Small" tortoiseshell butterfly. It was difficult getting the colours in the very reflective cysalis, but some of them are here. Shot with a 100mm macro, an a200 and possibly a 1.4tc.

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Some eggs are still missing, apparently these things lay twice a year so there is a chance left (kind of stings crawling in the nettles though).

Tim

 

[fooby]

Very nice, I especially like the ones of the chrysalis, it's so colourful!

 

[PhotoTish]

Very nice set :thumbup:

 

[EricD]

Nice macro work.....

 

[tpe]

Thank you for the kind words. It is very encouraging, now if those butterflies would only come back .

Tim

 

[JBArts]

Nice set, dear! =) It really caught my attention! Now, I'm planning to do one of these soon. Very realistic photos! Can you teach me how to captured amazing images? Thanks for sharing! tc =)

 

[tpe]

Hi JBarts,

the camera settings were easy, it was set to manual at around 1/125 f10 (about half or one stop under ambient) and a twin flash with diffusers was used and a 1:1 macro lens. The catapillars turned up on a nearby patch of nettles. So it was a case of getting stung but easy to get the shots as they don't move. The chryasalis were a bit diffucult to find but were nearly in the same place about 3 days later. Google was used to ID the catapillars and work out the day the butterflies would emerge. Then mixing some sugar and water and placing it on a yellow patterened plate made sure that they hung around to feed, and they were there in the morning of the day they emerged. Putting sugar water on the nearby flowers made them stay still on a good background. I saw about 4 Chrysalis and as many butterflies but didnt manage to get any of them actually emreging even though i went twice the night before and twice on the day they emerged so guess they are pretty quick when they start.

Hope that helps

Tim

 

[Maxis Gamez]

Cool stuff!!