I was going through my archives the other night when I came across this very close macro image of a White Morpho Butterfly. These creatures have fascinated me since my first visit to Butterfly World in Coconut Creek, Florida. Their wings look like silk handkerchiefs with gold embroidery and they love rotten banana nectar.

This is not a cropped image. I got in as close as I could and used my Canon 430 EXII flash to illumine the wings. It came out quite well, and I was surprised I had not done anything with this shot since last March.

I’ve taken many images of Richmond Birdwing Butterflies mating in the many months I’ve been going to Butterfly World here in Coconut Creek, Florida.  I went there the other day and came across these two framed by a palm frond. I really liked the setting and the lighting. It’s also the first image of this kind that I’ve taken with my brand new Canon 5D MK II. I really like how the colors render and the amount of detail I get using this full frame camera. Thanks for stopping by to visit!

I was visiting Butterfly World the other day when I came across this one with its wings open. I shared an image of the Richmond Birdwing from a side view with its wings closed yesterday. Here is a sight seldom seen, as they rarely rest this way.

It was an overcast and cooler day than what we have had this winter in South Florida. I have found the best time to photograph butterflies is when the sky is overcast, providing diffuse light, and the air temperature is not in the high seventies or eighties. These creatures will then tend to sit with their wings open, resting peacefully as if awaiting their photographer.

My next post will be of two of these beauties mating. I got one of the best images of this behavior I have ever captured and look forward to sharing it with you soon.

I was going through my archives the other night, looking for photos to get rid of. I have about 20,000 images in Lightroom, and I know there’s stuff I should just let go of….

Of course as I do this I come across shots that I need to do something with. I liked this one in particular because of the way the background blurred (bokeh). It was shot with my Canon t2i and 100mm f2.8 macro lens. I have since upgraded to a Canon 5D Mark II and the “L” version of the macro lens, and I still find some of the images from the t2i to be quite compelling.

This butterfly was captured at Butterfly World, here in Coconut Creek, Florida. It’s Australia’s largest butterfly, and is on the endangered species list. As you can see, it’s very colorful, with a very unique pattern on its wings, making it an attractive source of macro imagery.

I’ll be posting more images of this butterfly over the next few days, sort of a mini series. I hope you enjoy seeing these as much as I enjoyed making them.

I’ve spending time every afternoon lately going through my archives. I have a lot of images in Adobe Lightroom that are sitting in a miscellaneous collection gathering dust. I kept putting stuff I wasn’t sure what to do with in a Quick Collection, which is supposed to be a temporary storage place. I got up to close 500 images in there, and I figured I need to clear this out so I can use that space for other things.

And in doing this I am coming across some cool images. This Great Egret is a common bird in my area of South Florida. We even have them in my backyard at times. This one I captured at the lake up the street from my home. I had my Canon G12 with me, which is a very fun point and shoot/bridge camera to play with. It shoots in RAW mode as well as JPG and has the ability to shoot in a lot of different exposure modes like my DSLR.

I didn’t crop this at all. I just used the 5x zoom on the G12 and carefully crept up to the bird. This one is pretty used to humans, it’s walked up to me at a distance of 4-5 feet at times. I processed this image with Nik Software’s Color Efex Pro to add more contrast and detail to the feather areas.