Monarchs in Love

[bvar22]

OK.
Last FlutterBy post of the year.
I've had fun stalking these beauties all summer, and learned a little bit about them.
About mid-July, they started performing beautiful aerial duets which I later learned is a part of the mating ritual. According to the Tubes of the InterNets, the Male pursues the Female.

I was never able to capture decent pics of the purely aerial displays of acrobatics, but I was lucky one afternoon to catch this pair dancing in a garden.

All pix Nikon D200
Nikon 70-200 F2.8 VR

ISO 500
Aperture F/8
Shutter 1/500
Full Zoom (200mm)
Manual Focus






























These last two pix are of a different pair on a different day. I don't know how rare these pix are, but I've never seen this before. They were high up in a tree, and I initially thought they were a single leaf on a bare branch. I snapped a few hurried pix, and then started moving through the thick brush for a better shot. I didn't think they would be going anywhere.
I was amazed when the flew off still joined together! Unfortunately, I was not able to capture any "in flight" photos, but it was truly remarkable.

[Blue_In_AK]

1. I love the monarchs

We don't see them much up here, but there used to be millions of them down in Marin County when I lived there. Certain times of the year, they would almost look like windblown autumn leaves falling out of the trees.

Do you mind if I ask a dumb question? When you increase the ISO like that, it means that you can shoot at a faster speed? That's how you get the stop motion effect even when they're fluttering around? I'm still learning all this stuff - I usually don't pay much attention to ISO, just set it on 100 and forget about it, which works fine for landscapes, but I guess if something's moving your shutter speed needs to be super fast, right?

[bvar22]

2. Yes, increasing the ISO makes your camera "faster".

The balance is still between the Shutter Speed and the Aperture (F Stop).
There is some sacrifice in raising the ISO. In general, Grain increases, Noise increases, and the color saturation decreases.

I would prefer to shoot at ISO 100 all the time, but to get a Shutter Speed of 1/500 at ISO100, I would have had to open the apreture (a lower F Stop). Opening the aperture decreases the depth of field (how much of your pic is "in focus"). It was difficult to keep these fluttering bugs in focus, so I opted for greater Depth of Field (Focus)(margin of focus error) by using F/8 and raising the ISO to 500.

1/500 shutter speed is still pretty slow for things with wings, but this was about the best compromise I could find.

[Blue_In_AK]

3. Thanks for the explanation.

Someday I'll understand all of this.

[F.Gordon]

4. We need to have a sitdown young lady

:hi:

ISO is really easy to understand. It is nothing more than a factor that determines how sensitive to light your fancy camera guts are. Think of it this way......

ISO is a bucket.... the ISO # is the size of the bucket.... and light is your water.

For example;

A bucket that is ISO 100 needs a gallon of water (light) to fill it.
A bucket that is ISO 1600 only needs a cup of water (it's a very small bucket) :P
Just break out your cookbook guide to figure ISO 200 (2 quarts of water), etc....

The shutter speed and aperture just determine how quickly or slowly ya' fill your bucket full of water. When ya' snap a pic you're trying to fill your bucket right up to the rim for a "good" exposure. Using smaller buckets (higher ISO's) just let you fill your bucket faster.

Just think .... small ISO# = BIG bucket.... big ISO# = small bucket. Everything is ass-backwards with this photographicalistical stuff. :crazy:

There's going to be a test next tuesday.

Do you know how to set your camera so it'll snap at ISO3200? That's a really really small bucket. Only need a few tablespoons of light to fill that sucker. You need to go into your custom functions in your menu thingee. After that it won't read as a number like the rest of your ISO display (on the top of the camera). When you're at ISO3200 it just says the letter "H". I'm guessin' that means "high".
:smoke:

Your DVD will go out tommorrow. I think I have the correct address. I'm either sending it to you or GOPFighter.... not sure.
:rofl:

[Blue_In_AK]

6. I don't think GOP Fighter is in Alaska. :-)

Thanks for the lesson. That makes sense. I've pretty well got the aperture/shutter speed thing figured out, and the depth of field thing, and I sort of knew what ISO was for. It's just getting it all to work together that's the tricky part.

Now -- I would like to ask all of you to pray or whatever you do so that this rain stops TONIGHT.

[F.Gordon]

7. You live in Alaska?

;-)

Bummer on the rain thing. Have you tried calling *? My understanding is that he* and God talk with each other quite frequently.

[Blue_In_AK]

9. I'd rather shoot pictures in the rain. :-)

[F.Gordon]

5. Going to miss your flutterby pics

Love the background colors in this series. I think I only have one decent flutterby snap and the only reason I got it was because the little flutter had a broken wing and got tired of flying away from me.

[bvar22]

8. Thanks. Question for you and Blue.

In the OP, I wanted to present the visual experience that the Male was hovering around the Female, who eventually moved to another flower bud, followed shortly by the male (the chase).

I tried several different crops for this series of pix.

Initially, I cropped tight on the Monarchs. I got good detail and color, but the series lost all context with the local surroundings.

In the next, I used a very wide crop,centering all the pix on a central bud. That one did give a good impression of movement across the frame, but the Monarchs were smaller, and too much detail was sacrificed. That series also seemed boring with a static background.

The Final (the one used in the OP) was a combination of the two methods. I know from experience that after I play with my pix too long, I can't see them with fresh eyes.

Was it obvious that this was a sequential flow of activity in a specific small location over a short period of time, or did this appear as a disconnected bunch of butterfly pictures?

I know what I see, but I am not sure what you see. :shrug:




OK....Last Flutterby Post of the Summer......
....Starting....NOW!

50mm F1.8D
ISO=250.....1/1250.....F/5.6

[F.Gordon]

10. I saw two flutterbys fluttering around

Didn't initially look at it the way you intended it to be seen. After understanding what it was I was looking at... yes, I do see what you see. I wouldn't be able to tell a male flutter from a female flutter so I think there are times it's necessary to let flutter-info-challenged people like myself to know what is going on with a series of photos.

The background and surroundings look natural. Not every photo has to have Cream of Bokeh Soup, IMHO.

Love the last two... especially the second.

[bvar22]

11. Thanks, F.

There is just enough information in the series for the continuity to come across.
Some commentary would have helped, or a video strip.