How to... Capture a butterfly Capturing photographs of butterflies with a digital camera is much more successful once you get to know their little quirks and foibles. Here Mike Dimery, Trust member and Willsbridge volunteer, shares his tips (and his wonderful photos) with you.
Comma and peacock males featured here are basking species. Staking a favourite sunny spot to wait for passing females, they will drive off other insects. As they are territorial, even if you disturb them the first time they won’t go far and you’ll often have a second chance for a photo, so these are good species to start with.
Speckled woods like to bask in dappled sunlight in shady areas and are another common species that is quite tolerant to careful approach. Approach basking butterflies slowly and carefully. Avoid casting a shadow on them. Using either the camera screen or viewfinder to frame the image, start snapping before you reach the optimum distance. The best way to get the whole butterfly in focus is to shoot directly above the insect in a classic open wing shot, as above left, but you can get more interesting shots from different angles like above right. Aim to focus on the insect’s eyes. On very warm days a basking butterfly will close its wings to present the smallest face to the sun to stop overheating. If you want an open wing shot you can, if very careful, cast a shadow over it and it’ll maybe open its wings. Get any other shots you want first though as it might fly away, as it’ll almost certainly do so when the shadow is removed.
Active species like orange tips often stop only to mate or to feed from flowers. When they do rest they perch on plants like hedge parsley, hide their forewings and rely on excellent camouflage. To photograph these requires a lot of patience, either chasing them or waiting at a potential nectar stopping point. The commonest butterflies, the small and large whites, are also often difficult to photograph well so hone your skills on other species first before trying these.
Learn where butterflies hang out. There are those that like hedgerows,
like ringlets, above left, and gatekeepers, above right.
When trawling through long grass, try to keep to established tracks. Animals such as foxes or badgers keep to beaten tracks and if you follow these then you will damage the flora less. If you have to crash through undergrowth to get a shot try to find a route that is least damaging, then retrace your steps afterwards. Avoid trampling flowers or disturbing ground nesting birds at all costs. Be aware that larvae of some blues live inside flowers so you may crush next year’s butterflies as well as destroy a potential nectaring site.
Look out for good backgrounds. The common blue, to the right of the common and adonis blues above, presented itself as a perfect shot at the top of a stalk of grass where the background was sufficiently far away to be out of focus and diffused. Such a background throws the subject forward, making it stand out. Watch your subjects habits. The chalkhill blue male, above left, spent most of its time with wings closed but I noticed that when a female was around it would dance around her then display open-winged for a second or two before dancing around again. Many butterflies like bramble blossom to take nectar from so such areas are good sites to hunt for insects, and they can be found even in city areas that are a bit overgrown. Check out the Trust reserves at Brandon Hill and Royate Hill. And anywhere you find flowering buddleia, often called the butterfly bush, on a sunny late summer’s day you will find dozens of butterflies, like the red admiral above right.
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