The So Cal Expedition to the Butterfly Jungle was a smashing success.....err, maybe not the best choice of words given the fragile nature of the primary subject of the journey. I had the extreme pleasure of spending the day at Wild Animal Park in Escondido, CA with Anita, @aglennc plus husband John, Louise and Ken, @Weezilou, and Maria, @mariaostrowski. A perfect day and a warning to all followers that many animal photos will be featured over the next few weeks!
How lovely to have a 365 meet up at the zoo! Looking forward to seeing all your new animal shots. Any flamingos? Silly question! Lol! Your butterfly is beautiful! Fav !
Great focus and clarity Ron, i see you upped the ISO, somewhat.. wouldn't know it from this image here.. it's a great bit of flora, not large enough to swamp the butterfly but enough to make an impact, with it's beautiful colours and shape and form.. it shows off the B/f legs rather well too.
sounds like you had a good time at the Zoo, well done to you all for making it happen..
A stunning image beautiful clarity, composition and depth of field, after reading some of the other members comments investigated the Exif information, all I can say is that's some camera you have Ron, I'm constantly amazed at the clarity and detail achievable at high ISO settings, I push mine all the time, I remember the days of 35 mm film I only shot film rated a ISO 50, 100 or as high as 200 on very rare occasions, lol :)
Awesome.. I'm checking out what has been uploaded before I do any of mne... so maybe not to duplicate right away.. Great first sentence or two of your narrative........ Popular and Trending again........ Well done.
@pamknowler Yes, that is truly a silly question, Pam - we just happened to select the flamingo area as our meeting point! And don't worry - plenty of animal shots already have, and will continue, to be posted. Apologies in advance!
@salza Thank you kindly Sally. Yes, it's always great when the folks that we share our photos and lives, really, with can managed to get together in person. Always fun.
@jorlam Thank you kindly....once again. ;-) Yes, I cranked up the ISO, out of necessity, really. Given the desire to freeze the butterflies and the need to lengthen the depth of field, there really was no other choice but the crank up the ISO. I'm just thankful that the A7 RII has such a great processor and good resolution that it doesn't hurt much. Thanks for your in depth critique. Always interests me what you have to say.
@888rachel That's funny that you were jealous of my and I was jealous of you, when you caught the pair, one in flight. Mutual jealousy - not a bad thing! Thanks, Rachel.
@pcoulson Had to chuckle a little at your comment, Peter. Yes, I agree that you also have quite a camera. I'm having a lot of fun with this mirrorless way of doing things. Like you, I always seemed to have an aversion to anything higher than ISO 100 film. I remember reading that the photographers for National Geographic always shot ISO 25 Kodachrome. But for the butterflies I was basically forced into cranking up the ISO, and I too am shocked at the minimum of noise resulting from that exposure. I just wonder what we'll be able to do in a decade or so! Thanks for your great comments.
@cjphoto Thanks Chris. Wow, everyone is abuzz about my ISO! Pretty surprising that you can go high now and not lose significant quality. Thanks for stopping by, my friend.
@aglennc Thanks so much, Anita. I'm a little behind, but trying to respond first, and then I'll see what you and the others have posted from WAP. That was a great meeting....of course!
@farmreporter Hope I'm not too late, Wendy. Yes, a few tips - you'll want to shoot in manual or shutter priority, minimum of 1/500 sec, preferably 1/1000. That will freeze the butterflies nicely. And you'll also want to get your aperture up as much as possible to maximize your depth of field (your focal length will be naturally short, because presumably you'll be close to your subject). So the combination of high speed and high f-stop numbers will necessitate a high ISO setting. If I recall you have a D7200, which has an excellent processor, and it handles high ISO settings very well. I had mine set on 1600 for most of my shots, so why not give that a try, use shutter priority, and see what f-stop the camera chooses. I'd also suggest continuous shutter providing you have plenty of room on your card. They move their wings so fast that you can't really hope to catch them positioned optimally with a single shot. Try 3 or 5 shot bursts and you should be able to get some quality shots. Good luck and I look forward to seeing your results!
sounds like you had a good time at the Zoo, well done to you all for making it happen..