Photos

There are times, you have to get down much lower than on your knees.

It was in a phototrek along a sandy bank of a river in the Gunung Mulu National Park. There was this butterfly fluttering elusively and never less than 2 metres from wherever I was.

The thing is, there is no sense in chasing after butterflies. The best thing for you to do is to observe its flight plan. It tends to hover and land on a particular stop. Try afternoon and near a body of water like a stream.

This one decided to land and inspect a peanut shell. To get this shot, I need to get down at ground zero and wait for it to come into my focused point.

Go for manual focus and prefocused on a point where you think the butterfly might walk into. Your autofocus might be that fast but not that fast enough to focus on a skittish butterfly. Furthermore the focusing sound just might scare them away.

If you are wondering what is DOF, take a look at the butterfly in the photo. It is walking inside a swath or range where everything on it is in sharp focused. Anything else before and after it, is blurred.

DOF or Depth Of Field is about how deep or long is this range of sharpness.
1. The bigger the aperture (the smaller the F/number), the shallower the depth.
2. The smaller the aperture (the bigger the F/number), the deeper the DOF is.

Have you ever shoot anyone with a 50mm F/1.8 prime lens at 3 feet.If you were to focus on your subject's nose at this setting, the DOF is so shallow that everything else except the nose, is blurred.
DOF is also affected by how far you are and the focal length of your lens to the subject.

By the way, please don't ask me about the butterfly name/species thing. I did look it up. With way over 200 species in Sarawak alone, I gave up the moment I see the long list.