Painted lady and other beautiful creatures
Posted in Uncategorized on August 9th, 2006 by admin
Yesterday was finally a day for serious shooting; overcast, but still very warm and quite calm. I headed to Preiviiki, Paarnoori anchorage, in search for dragonflies. To be honest, I was boldly planning to shoot them on the fly, but that was a still-born idea :-( Have to admit that my reflexes aren’t that fast. (I got one but only for definition purposes. Unsharp.) I was using my 300mm lens with a 36mm Kenko tube and that is quite a combo to handle!
Instead of dragons, the butterflies made my day. First it was the painted lady, then brimstone and finally a peacock butterfly.
Shooting butterflies with a long lens is a challenge, so composition and sharpness aren’t always what expected – but when you get a keeper, you’ll notice it and so will the others :-)
I prefer my Tamron 90mm when shooting insects because of the outstanding quality, but 300mm with the tubes is the solution when shooting big and fast insects. I have seriously thought about getting Tamron or Sigma 180mm macro lens, but still not very comfortable with the idea. Sigma has disappointed me once with the 150mm, but will it happen again with the 180mm lens? Who can tell you? Nikon has its 200mm macro, which has to be about the best macro lens you can get, but it costs a lot. Tamron 180mm hasn’t got as good reviews as 90mm :-/ and it is also more expensive than the Sigma equivalent. Perhaps I’ll just master my technique with 300mm and tubes. The quality still ain’t the same as it is with the macro lens…argh! One possibility, of course, is the new Micro Nikkor 105 VR AF-S, worlds first macro with image stabilizer…
