I took this picture of an eastern tiger swallowtail on an Indian paintbrush flower in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The sun had just risen above the distant forest, and the backlighting was brilliant. I exposed for the shaded side of the butterfly, and that meant the highlights were completely blown out. When butterflies are cold, they can't fly. Until the sun warms up their wing muscles, a close approach can be made without fear the insect will take flight (they need between 50 and 55 degrees Fahrenheit to fly). I took this picture with a Mamiya RZ 67 film camera in the 90's, and I used a 250mm telephoto (equivalent to a 120mm in the full frame digital format) plus an extension tube. To insure complete focus on the subject, I made the film plane parallel with the plane of the wings. My settings were unrecorded, but remembering how I used to shoot with film, they were probably 1/30, f/16, and I used Fujichrome Velvia with an ISO of 50. I stabilized the camera with a tripod, and fortunately there was no wind.
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