NW30-Butterfly

Originally uploaded by John Setzler.

The Catawba Science Center has opened their butterfly garden for the summer. I decided to pay them a visit today. I sold my 105mm macro lens a couple years ago because I never used it much and I could rarely find instances where I felt the need to shoot at 1:1. After I sold that lens, I bought a set of extension tubes so I could shoot closeup whenever I wanted to, but I had never taken the opportunity to experiment with those. Today, I tried out several combinations of a 12, 20, and 36mm extension tube stack on my 70-200 f/2.8 lens. Shooting with extension tubes changes the game plan to some extent. I found that, in order to get a focus on my subject, I had to run the zoom all they way out to the long end and then adjust my camera distance to the subject to obtain focus. That made it a bit challenging to work with moving subjects such as butterflies.

I’m gonna go back whenever I can get in there without a Saturday afternoon crowd. This exhibit is designed to attract children. When a child enters, the staff will spray their hand with a sugar-water solution so they can pick up butterflies on their fingers throughout the exhibit area.

Art Photography, Miscellaneous