Today I have been trying to photograph Painted Ladies in flight. I set up the camera on a tripod and started shooting whenever a butterfly flew near the Buddleia. These are all cropped from the original image so the sharpness is rather lacking.
Are they common? I have what is possibly a stupid question but will ask anyway. Why do moths come out at night when it is dark but are attracted to light? Or are they actually around all day but only noticed at night?
The theory is that they use natural lights, such as the moon to fly in a straight line, by keeping it in the same direction. They are confused by artificial lights, and keeping the light at a constant angle means that it flies in a spiral till they reach the light.
Your pictures are brilliant @Alan Clark2 in Liverpool , the detail is amazing and even the most overlooked insects can be seen in a different light when shown this closely, thank you for sharing your wonderful pictures with us - and please tell me what type of camera and lens you have.
My camera is a Canon 7D MkII, and the lens I used for these photos is the Laowa 100mm x2 macro.
The images were made using a technique called Focus-Stacking. At high magnification the depth of field is very small even at small apertures, so you take a series of photographs changing the focus very slightly, then combine them using suitable software (I use Helicon Focus) - that way the depth of field is unlimited. This is easier if the camera is on a tripod, which I used here.
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I have what is possibly a stupid question but will ask anyway. Why do moths come out at night when it is dark but are attracted to light? Or are they actually around all day but only noticed at night?
The theory is that they use natural lights, such as the moon to fly in a straight line, by keeping it in the same direction. They are confused by artificial lights, and keeping the light at a constant angle means that it flies in a spiral till they reach the light.
My camera is a Canon 7D MkII, and the lens I used for these photos is the Laowa 100mm x2 macro.
The images were made using a technique called Focus-Stacking. At high magnification the depth of field is very small even at small apertures, so you take a series of photographs changing the focus very slightly, then combine them using suitable software (I use Helicon Focus) - that way the depth of field is unlimited. This is easier if the camera is on a tripod, which I used here.