Point & shoot compacts and megazooms have advanced a lot in recent years but if you are serious about photographing butterflies you really need a DSLR or CSC camera. Both types accept a huge range of interchangeable lenses, flashguns and accessories making them suitable for a wide range of subjects including landscapes, sports, portraits and wildlife as well as butterfly photography.

DSLRs have optical viewing systems that use mirrors and prisms to divert incoming light from the lens to the viewfinder. When the shutter button is pressed the mirror swings instantly out of the way, allowing the light to reach the sensor. The viewfinders are bright but have the disadvantage that the view is momentarily interrupted when the mirror is raised and the shutter is open. The mechanism may also introduce vibrations which can affect image sharpness.

CSCs dispense with mirrors and prisms. Instead the image from the sensor is relayed to an EVF (electronic viewfinder), and onto a live-view monitor on the rear of the camera. There are many advantages over DSLRs – less mechanical parts, less vibration and faster auto-focusing. Viewfinder sharpness and clarity on the most recent models is equal to that of optical prism finders.

Which brand?

I’m often asked to advise on camera purchases. “Should I get a Canon or a Nikon?”, “Who makes the best lenses?”. People often claim that one brand is better than another. I doubt if Van Gogh or Picasso descended into brand loyalty debates about their paintbrushes! My advice would be to steer clear of such debates. Just shortlist a few cameras that meet your specifications, then go to a shop and handle each of them. A camera which feels good in your hands, with easily accessible controls and a high quality viewfinder will be quicker and far more enjoyable to use than a fiddly, gimmick-laden but less well designed model.

Choosing the right model

From an economic standpoint it is advisable to buy a camera that is due to be discontinued, because prices drop dramatically when a replacement model is on the horizon. Upgrading to the very latest hi-spec model is an enticing prospect however! Personally I upgrade about once every 4 years, and buy a well established and proven model. When choosing a model I prefer to go for a camera with a superior autofocus and metering system rather than a similarly priced model with more megapixels or with an articulated focus screen or advanced video capability.

Purple Emperor Apatura iris, photographed by natural light with a budget DSLR – Adrian Hoskins

Lenses

All the major manufacturers produce a vast range of lenses suitable for every conceivable situation, including a wide choice of macro lenses of various focal lengths. Always check compatibility between lenses and camera bodies by using the charts shown on the camera manufacturer websites. Beware that certain camera functions may not work if you fit an incompatible lens.

There are 3 basic types of lens available – primes, zooms and macros. Don’t be misled into thinking that the so-called ‘macro’ facility of zoom lenses will give you results as good as a real macro lens, it won’t. The results however are quite acceptable to many people, and it’s well worthwhile having a general purpose zoom with a close-up facility.

Euphydryas aurinia, 18-70mm zoom set at 70mm and closest focus – Adrian Hoskins

Zoom lenses

Standard kit lenses, typically 18-70mm zooms, offer a reasonable working distance and focus close enough to fill the picture with a medium sized butterfly. Most manufacturers also offer longer zooms such as 18-135mm or even 18-250mm. These versatile optics will cover a huge range of subjects – butterflies, birds, sports, portraits, landscapes etc; and can be left permanently fixed to the camera.

The disadvantage of zoom lenses is that they usually have a small maximum aperture. This reduces viewfinder brightness making it harder to compose photos in poor lighting conditions. Zoom lenses never focus as closely as true macro lenses. They are fine for larger butterflies but they don’t focus close enough to photograph blues, coppers or skippers.

Many people find it difficult to approach nervous butterflies, and prefer to use long prime telephotos that enable them to shoot from further away. The greater working distance however can often be a disadvantage as it severely limits your choice of viewpoint. Another big problem with such lenses is their weight, which makes them difficult to hold steady and necessitates the use of a tripod.

Macro-lenses

If you are really serious about butterfly photography, particularly if you want to photograph larvae, pupae, anatomical details etc, you will need a proper macro lens, i.e. one that will focus continually from infinity down to life-size without needing to fiddle with switches, or to add close up lenses.

Essex Skipper Thymelicus lineola – Adrian Hoskins

The major manufacturers produce a range of macro lenses to cater for all needs. The light and easy to use lenses in the 60-70mm range are fine for the more approachable species, but butterflies are often quite nervous, so ideally you need something longer. Most users therefore feel happier using something in the 90-105mm range.

The best lenses feature internal focussing, which keeps the length of the lens constant regardless of focus distance and makes focussing much faster. These lenses have virtually silent focus motors.

Some of the more expensive lenses also feature image stabilisation which helps to reduce blurred images caused by camera-shake. At macro distances their effectiveness is limited but they will still let you use a slightly slower shutter speed assuming of course that the subject is stationary. Beware that image stabilisation only corrects for camera shake, it does not correct for subject movement!

To get this close you need a macro lens that provides a magnification ratio of 1:1 – Adrian Hoskins

If you are considering buying one of the longer 150mm or 180mm macro lenses, beware that these are a lot heavier, much more difficult to hold steady, and slower to focus than shorter lenses. There are times when they can be useful to photograph a distant butterfly, but for most of the time if you approach your subject carefully you should have no difficulty getting close with a 105mm macro.

Ultra close-ups

The egg illustrated below is about the size of a pin head. It was photographed at 1:1 scale using a 105mm macro lens. The resulting image was then heavily cropped and sharpened. To photograph subjects this small however it is much better to mount the lens on a long extension tube or bellows. These allow the lens to focus a lot closer, down to about 2x magnification. Unfortunately there are two major problems when using extension tubes or bellows. Firstly the amount of light reaching the sensor is greatly reduced, making it very difficult to see the image in the viewfinder. Secondly such set-ups are cumbersome, and are almost impossible to use without the aid of a strong tripod.

Another alternative is to mount a 10 dioptre close-up lens on the front of a normal macro lens. This allows more light to reach the viewfinder, making composition and focussing a lot easier. Close-up lenses are much cheaper than tubes or bellows. Unfortunately their optical quality is poor, but if you use an aperture of F11-16 the loss of sharpness is minimised and the results are fairly acceptable.

Brown Hairstreak egg Thecla betulae, actual size about 1mm diameter – Adrian Hoskins

Gonepteryx rhamni, Overhead midday sun enhances the textures – Adrian Hoskins

General considerations

Before delving into daylight-shooting techniques, let’s first look at a few general considerations:

If you are new to butterfly photography it’s tempting to fit your camera with a fairly long zoom lens, and to take your pictures from a distance. The problem with this approach is that it’s difficult to hold the camera steady. You can minimise the effects of camera-shake by using a fast shutter speed but that necessitates using a high ISO setting. The latter unfortunately results in high levels of image ‘noise’ – distracting multi-coloured specks that show up in shadowy areas if you make large prints.

There are of course occasions when you have no choice but to shoot from a distance, e.g. when a butterfly is high up in a tree. It makes sense therefore to carry a long lens in your camera bag, but for 90% of the time you are better off using a shorter lens. A camera fitted with a 60mm or 70mm macro lens will be more manoeuvrable and lighter. It will also have a wider maximum aperture, resulting in a brighter viewfinder. OK, you have to get closer to the butterfly, but if you wear dark clothes, approach carefully, and avoid casting your shadow on it you’ll be fine.

Shutter speeds and apertures

The easy option is to set Program mode and let the camera take care of all the settings, but most experienced photographers prefer to have more control. When shooting images for the website, I set the camera to 200 or 400 ISO, and Shutter Priority mode, usually with the shutter speed set to 1/250 or 1/500 sec. The camera then sets an appropriate aperture for the lighting conditions – typically between F8 – F11. All lenses, including macro lenses are optimised to produce the sharpest results in the F5.6 to F11 range. Stopping down beyond F16 increases depth of field but at the same time it decreases optical quality.

Metering and bracketing

Digital cameras have sophisticated light metering systems that compare the scene in the viewfinder with an on-board database representing 1000’s of different scenes. Using advanced algorithms they calculate the exposure needed, and set a suitable shutter speed / aperture combination. Thus with ‘average’ subjects a DSLR will usually deliver a fairly accurate exposure.

Butterflies however are far from being average subjects – they range from very dark, almost black Ringlets, to dazzlingly reflective Whites and Morphos. Furthermore butterflies often settle on bare ground or other reflective substrates that fool metering systems into under-exposing, resulting in a very dark image. You can have similar problems when photographing brightly coloured butterflies against a very dark background such as shown in the photo below.

You can use the camera’s exposure compensation control to correct this. If I had used a ‘straight’ automatically metered exposure for the photo of the Brimstone butterfly below, the meter would have been over-influenced by the bright subject, and would have resulted in a dark under-exposed photo. Using exposure compensation to increase the exposure by +1 stop has produced a perfectly balanced exposure capturing the luminescent quality of the lighting.

Making decisions about how much exposure compensation to use can be time consuming, so most cameras enable you to ‘bracket’ exposures automatically. This just means shooting a rapid series of images, typically a series of 3 shots, with the first shot ‘as suggested’ by the camera, followed by additional shots taken at ‘darker’ and ‘lighter’ settings. This provides you with a series of images from which you can later choose the best one.

Gonepteryx rhamni, with camera set to +1 stop exposure compensation – Adrian Hoskins

Natural lighting

As any good photographer will tell you, the quality of the lighting is just as important as the subject and composition. Many people think that you can only photograph butterflies on bright sunny days but nothing could be further from the truth. In overcast conditions for example lighting will be flat, virtually shadow-less and ideal for bringing out the most delicate colours on a butterfly’s wings. The subtle hues of the subject and background in the image below could never have been captured in bright lighting conditions. The photo was taken at dusk, as the butterfly went to roost for the night.

Dingy Skipper Erynnis tages, male at roost on knapweed – Adrian Hoskins

Bright sunlight on the other hand will make the colours much more vivid, and give photos more visual impact. To bring out textures you need the light to be directional. You can use the low angle of early morning / late afternoon sunlight to accentuate the wing textures of species that bask on the ground. Similarly you can take advantage of the midday sun to bring out the textures of species that hold their wings erect when at rest, such as the Brimstone butterfly at the top of this page.

Some butterflies, e.g. Coppers, Metalmarks, Emperors and Morphos, have structural colours. This means that the colour varies according to the type of lighting, and the angle at which it hits the wing scales. An example is Doxocopa laure as illustrated below. Species with structural wing colours are best photographed under intense sun light. You can move around the butterfly and change your angle of view to see the effects of sunlight hitting the wings at various angles.

Doxocopa laure griseldis, male, Satipo, Peru – Adrian Hoskins

Large Skipper Ochlodes venata – Photographed by weak sunlight, in combination with the built-in flash unit. 18-55 zoom at closest focus, aperture priority metering, F16 – Adrian Hoskins

Choosing and using flash

Purists will always shoot using natural daylight but there are several reasons why it can often be better to shoot by flash or to use a carefully balanced combination of daylight and flash illumination.

Firstly, contrast levels in bright sunlight are often so high that it is a good idea to ‘fill-in’ the shadow areas with flash illumination, thereby lowering the overall contrast. Secondly, on warm sunny days butterflies can be very active, and the short duration of the flash ( about 1/2000 sec ) is better at freezing their movement. Thirdly, although the flash duration is short the light output is very high – brighter than sunlight at close distances. This means that apertures as small as F16 or F22 can be used, resulting in greater depth of field. Finally, there will be many situations such as in the interior of a rainforest, where conditions are so dark that it is virtually impossible to shoot by daylight.

There are of course a few disadvantages to using flash. No form of artificial lighting will ever look as natural as daylight. You can minimise the flash effect by using it as a fill-in rather than as the main source of illumination, but this can result in double shadows. The bulk and weight of a complex flash set-up can be cumbersome and slow you down. The biggest problem however is that the auto flash exposure systems of most cameras cause a pre-flash to fire a fraction of a second before the main flash. The pre-flash alarms the butterfly causing it to take flight, and results in a missed photo. Even if it doesn’t take flight the butterfly is likely to twitch its wings in reaction to the pre-flash, causing loss of sharpness. ‘Twitchy’ species are therefore best photographed by natural lighting.

Dedicated flashguns

Most modern flash units are ‘dedicated’, i.e. designed to operate exclusively with a particular brand of camera. The circuitry allows the camera and flash unit to communicate electronically, so that when the camera senses that flash illumination is necessary it automatically activates the flash unit and controls the duration of the flash burst to achieve the best exposure. Dedicated flash systems automatically set the correct shutter speed for correct flash synchronisation, and also transmit a ‘correct exposure achieved’ signal to the viewfinder. Additionally they usually incorporate a timer which turns the flash off after a few minutes to save battery power. In most cases it is possible to buy extension leads which retain the dedicated features even when the flash is used ‘off-camera’.

Auto flash exposure

Modern DSLR cameras meter the flash intensity either directly from the image plane, or from the focusing screen. In a split second the camera measures the strength of the flash light coming through the lens, calculates the variables such as aperture, subject distance and ISO setting, and then controls the duration of the flash burst to provide the correct exposure. Some systems work better than others, and it is often necessary to use exposure compensation if the subject is very pale, very dark, or if the background is some distance behind the subject.

Off-camera flash

Flash often produces unnatural results – butterflies can look like cardboard cut-outs, and reflections from the flash can make the wings look too shiny, particularly on older worn specimens that have lost a few wing scales. You can minimise the problem by using a flash mounted on a bracket at 45 degrees above and to the side of the camera.

This provides a more 3-dimensional lighting effect and eliminates the reflections, but tends to produce excessively dark shadows. You can improve the results by using the integral flash as a supplementary light to ‘fill-in’ the shadows.

Ring flash

A ring flash normally consists of a single circular flash tube which surrounds the lens. Some models have a different design, with either 2 or 4 tiny flash tubes built in to a housing that screws into the filter mount of the lens. Both types produce soft and virtually shadow-less illumination similar to that produced by daylight on an overcast day. Their devotees extol the virtues of soft lighting and ease of use, but the textures of the wing veins and scales, and of the foliage on which the butterfly is resting all tend to get lost, leaving a dull lifeless image. Ring-flashes are sold by Canon, Nikon, Sony, Pentax, Olympus, Sigma etc; and are dedicated to particular cameras.

LED ring-lights

Beware of ‘LED’ type ring flashes – these are not real flashguns, instead they use a continuous light source which will not freeze movement. Also they are very under-powered compared to a proper ring-flash, so the light will not be bright enough to allow the use of small apertures unless you use a very high ISO setting.

Twin-macro flash

Twin-macro flashes consist of a pair of small flash heads, mounted on a ring surrounding the lens. The flash heads are linked by cable to a ‘controller’ which sits in the camera’s hot-shoe. This lets the user choose between using auto-flash or manual output. In some cases it also allows each flash head to be set individually to fractional power settings.

Normal practice is to have one operating at full power to provide modelling and texture, and the other at half power to fill-in the shadow areas. The effect is usually quite pleasing. The flash heads can be set to a number of positions around the ring, and can be angled to point the light directly at any subject regardless of distance.

Balancing flash with daylight

The power of flash diminishes with distance, so consequently backgrounds receive less illumination than the foreground subject. This can result in a ‘taken at night’ look, but this is easily overcome by ensuring that the flash output and sunlight are balanced.

The easiest way to achieve this is to set the flash compensation to zero, and the daylight compensation to minus 1 stop. The subject is then correctly exposed by flash, while the background is rendered a fraction darker – enough to minimise any ‘ghost’ images, but still providing plenty of detail in the background.

White-letter Hairstreak  Satyrium w-album – Shutter priority, 1/125 sec. Flash compensation zero, daylight compensation minus 1 stop – Adrian Hoskins

Read as much about each species as you can, so you know where to look for them, and how they behave at different times of the day. Most species bask to warm up early in the morning. Courtship and copulation usually take place in late morning. Nectaring is easiest to observe and photograph in the afternoon. Many species roost openly on foliage as dusk approaches. Each species however has its own timetable and its own preferred habitat. Learn beforehand and you’ll get better photos.

Set your camera up correctly

Set up your camera in advance so you have a fast enough shutter speed to freeze movement, and a small enough aperture to obtain good depth of field. This generally necessitates an ISO setting in the 200-800 range. Using spot focus is usually faster and more accurate than zone or full area options. Using Program mode will free you from decision-making and let you concentrate on composition, but Aperture Priority or Shutter Priority modes will give you more flexibility.

Take essential accessories

Often you’ll find that your view of a butterfly is obstructed by a stem or grass blade, so carry a pair of small scissors to trim them away. Instead of carrying a cumbersome camera bag just carry your camera and macro lens around your neck, and use a pocket for accessories. Always carry a spare fully charged battery, a spare memory card, a lens cloth, and a waterproof plastic bag to protect your camera in the event of rain. Carry water if you are going to be out for more than an hour.

Wear suitable clothing

White or pale clothing makes you highly visible to butterflies and makes it much harder to approach them without scaring them off. Wearing shorts and t-shirts makes it more likely that you’ll be bitten by insects or scratched by thorns, so wear long sleeves and long trousers. Using knee pads and/or elbow pads will make it more comfortable to crawl around on stony ground. Wear a hat to avoid sunstroke.

Choose the right lighting conditions

Butterflies are easiest to find on hot sunny days but that is generally the worst time to photograph them. They will be easier to approach and more likely to bask in cloudy weather, weak sunlight or when temperatures are low in early morning or late afternoon. Shooting in harsh overhead sunlight will bring out the textures on the wings, but shooting in overcast conditions is better if you want to bring out subtle colours.

Use flash to fill-in shadows

Shooting with the sunlight coming from the side makes the photo look more 3-dimensional, but can cause ugly shadows that need to be lightened by the use of fill-in flash. Note that most cameras fire a pre-flash a fraction of a second before the main flash, and this causes some species e.g. skippers and satyrs to take flight. You can overcome this by using manual flash but you will need to take a few test shots to establish the correct exposure.

Approach carefully

Pre-visualise the photo you want to take, then approach the butterfly slowly and steadily, avoiding any sudden movements. Be careful not to cast your shadow over the butterfly. If you have difficulty approaching nervous butterflies, shoot from further back with a long lens, but you’ll have a wider choice of angle and will probably get better shots if you use a 90-100mm macro at closer distance – it just takes a bit of practice.

Choose the right angle

To get photos that are sharp from wing tip to wing tip you need to keep the camera sensor parallel to the wings of the butterfly. If you shoot from an oblique angle you will need a smaller aperture of about F16 to keep the entire butterfly in focus. Shooting from various angles adds variety however and stops your photos from all looking the same.

Watch the background

Fussy backgrounds and out of focus raindrops are very distracting, so compose your photo to try and keep the background uncluttered. Don’t overdo it though, as very plain backgrounds can make it look as if your photos were taken in a studio instead of a wild habitat.

Leave space around the butterfly

A very common mistake is to get too close and completely fill the picture with the butterfly. Usually you get a nicer photo by stepping further back and including some of the surrounding vegetation – it helps to place the subject in context with its habitat. Shooting from further back gives you more options to recompose and crop your photo when you download your images to your computer.