One of my favorite Lepidoptera shots is this luna moth I photographed on a fern in Michigan. There are suppliers of certain species of butterflies and moths who sell eggs, caterpillars, and cocoons (depending on the month), and you can raise them at home. When the insects emerge from the chrysalids (for butterflies) or cocoons (for moths) and they've pumped their body fluids into their wings, they are in perfect condition. For the first two hours, they can't fly. You can place them on any background you want and take the time to make the shots perfect. For extensive depth of field, make sure the back of the camera (i.e. the plane of the digital sensor) is parallel with the plane of the insect. Use f/16 or smaller, and use either a ring flash or diffused daylight to bring out the colors of the specimens. For this luna moth, I used outdoor shade, and my settings were f/32, 1/4 second, and 100 ISO. Check out insectnet.com for suppliers of both live and preserved insects.
2 Comments
Nov 15, 2018, 3:38:05 PM
Jim - You're very welcome, Linda. I write and publish a free, monthly eMagazine with articles on photography and Photoshop. I've written an article on how to photograph butterflies. There is a subject index in the back of the publication, and you can access that back issue. If you want to subscribe, please do so on the home page of my website: www.jimzuckerman.com.
Nov 15, 2018, 2:18:35 PM
Linda Purdom - Wonderful!! Would that I had known about this site years ago when I was teaching preschool. One of our favorite units was on bugs and butterflies. To have caterpillars that would mature into butterflies would have been so much fun:o)
Now that I'm retired and doing photography, I'll order some cocoons and chrysalides. I'll also save your instructions for getting the best pictures of the butterflies and moths when they hatch. Thank you for giving us instruction as well as sharing your beautiful pictures.
Linda