Photos and how I took them.

A relatively simple one to start with. The only problem here is going to be sunlight and of course the butterfly being at the correct angle ( and not flying away !! ). The luck I cant provide, but the technique I can ! As always set the white balance to daylight first as it's a sunny day. In the past I'd had many problems with different parts of the butterfly being in soft focus so as flat as it is, F7 is still recommended to keep it sharp - especially close up ! Focus point I used the wings as the butterflies eyes are non reflective. Normally I'd say always focus on the eyes but this is an exception. At 189mm you're going to need a higher shutterspeed too. So note the 1/250th instead of the normal 1/125th you'd need for a non-moving subject at lower zoom lengths ! ( 18-85mm ) so set your ISO to the level you need to get these shutter speeds.







For birds in flight the speed, depth and flight paths will always be unpredictable. I recommend using AI servo mode but normal mode will work as long as your lens has a nice fast focus lock. I increased the ISO to 1600 as even though there is a good amount of light, at 400mm you're also going to get a lot of movement - especially when tracking a moving subject so I would say 1/1250th of a second shutter speed is acceptable but would still suggest higher just to safe ! Switch your camera to high speed burst mode as it's better to be able to delete excess photos than not have enough to choose from in these situations. Try to estimate when the bird will fly into the shot, first trying to get a lock onto its head before moving in front of it and firing off shots until it flies into the frame.









This shot is slightly more complicated as it's a mixture of technique and luck. Out of shot, laying on its side is a Canon 580 EX II speedlight ( camera flash ) which is pointed at the back ot the bowl of water to backlight the water droplets as they splash ( but not at the camera lens or it will white-out the image !! ) The camera is tripod mounted with a macro lens for extra detail in the water. I am dropping a tiny metal screw into the water with my right hand while in my left hand is a hahnel remote shutter trigger. As quickly as the remote control works, I've found myself pushing it a second or so before dropping the screw into the water. Bigger splashes from higher up and smaller less destructive looking ones from lower down ( just being careful not to get my hand into the frame !! ). Keeping the ISO low helps as it's good to get less noisy images - and of course the flash is going to give you more than enough light to allow you to get the shutter speeds you'll need at lower ISO's. The external flash is set as a slave and triggered by the initial flash coming from the built in 60D camera flash. So there are 2 flashes in total - 1 hitting the image from the angle the lens is pointing and the 2nd from behind and across from an 11 - 5 o' clock angle. White balance is set for flash.

For low light shooting in the past I've always opted for lenses with built in IS ( Image Stabilisation ) but on this occassion I wanted to see how it looked with my 85mm F1.2 Lens for a couple of reasons. One being this lens is much sharper than my 70-200mm F2.8 IS lens and the other being I wanted to use F1.2 to get even more isolation on the subject. Due to this lens going all the way down to F1.2 it enables me to get very high shutterspeeds at ISO 1600 which is pretty good considering how dark it is ! The 1/640th is enough to isolation the fast movement of the firedancer - the very talented Grace Billings ( and if you've ever seen a Flame Oz show you'll see just how fast they move !! ) so a high shutter speed is essential in this case ! I would recommend manual focus until you can see the eyes are sharp and high speed shooting is also a must as this part of the show is about 10 - 15 seconds long only ! So for any low light shooting at speed always try and use the lowest F number possible or you're going to have to increase your ISO levels very high and risk high noise images. If you're on a tripod and want to capture the movement, use higher F numbers ( F16 to F20 ) , 5 second exposures and low ISO. It all depends on the effect you wish to get - a static moment ? Or endless fire trails ? I've found auto white balance works well at night and has often given me very accurate if not perfect low light colours.


Photographs like this one are a mixture of knowledge and pure luck as obviously you cant control where the bee will fly, which direction or at what speed which causes a lot of problems. If it flies beyond your F numbers range it's going to be out of focus. In this instance I was just lucky. F2.8 at 70mm leaves a very thin DOF ( depth of field ) hence the blurred background ! So you can either be very patient and hope the bee flies into your focus range or you can zoom out and stand closer as at lower zooms, lower F numbers will have a deeper compareed to when zoomed to maximum. If you want even deeper DOF, then increase your F number to F5.6 - F8. On a sunny day this will still give you the 1/640th shutter speed you'll need to capture a moving object clearly and will also still give you a nice blurred background and a sharper image ( most lenses are their sharpest at F8 ! ) So that covers how to take a photo like this for people with patience ( and people without ! ). Sunny day, so set your white balance to " Sunny " or manually to 5200k. High speed burst mode highly recommended. If it's an overcast day, increase your ISO as needed to get the 1/640th needed ( 70-200mm lenses ) or 1/800th - 1/1250th ( 300-400mm lenses ) and change your white balance accordingly.


Now this type of photography is tricky as you're relying on not only the direction, but the concentration and the strength of the light itself. You'll never find an object brighter than the sun - so in this photo, I've underexposed it to emphasise the brightest parts where the sun hits this plant instead of going for a perfecly balanced light because I thought it looked more dramatic and also if I exposed the image with the darker parts well lit then the brighter parts would be over exposed and blown out giving a completely different look and effect. I am using a lens hood which is very useful as it will let lots of light in but it helps prevent the sun from directly hitting the lens which causes lens flare which I didnt really want ( although it can look great in some photographs ! ). As for the angle, I'm crouching and aiming the lens up making sure the sunlight is hitting the top left of the lens hood and not hitting the lens itself. I shot F1.2 not for the shutterspeed ( I'll have more than enough shutter speed in this light ! ) but for the bokeh. I wanted to melt everything in the background away to give the plant as much isolation as possible. I didnt get too close to it because F1.2 is very shallow so if am too close, the flowers at the front and back will be very out of focus / non sharp and also from further back I could see the light source itself as well as the illumination of the plant. White balance set to 5200 / Sunny. You can see a video of how I took this photo below.