What Can I Say, I like Butterflys.

[CACollazo]

I used a telephoto lens for this one.

Enjoy,
Carlos

[raynerj1]

Hi Carlos,

Nice butterfly... A zoom less can really effect your focus. Your F-stop was set to low on this one. The head of the butterfly is in focus but the rear wing is out of focus. I would imagine a F11 or higher would fix that problem.

[Soquili]

Nice photo Carlos.

Telephoto lenses cut down on the amount of light that gets through to the film or CCD in the case of digital. You will notice the f-stops are lower numbers which indicate wider aperature, which lets more light into the camera.

The wider the aperature the smaller the depth of field, the distance in front of and behind the actual focal point of the lens.

As John pointed out the depth of field being small caused the wing on the far side of the butterfly to be out of focus.

By slowing down the shutter speed and increasing the f-stop (reducing the aperature width) you can increase the depth of field.

Deciding what to have within or outside the depth of field is the difference between a shapshot and a photograph. A snapshot is taken without thought of depth of field and a photograph takes everything into consideration to compose an eye catching image.

[molucca]

I have seen good shots at an F number less than F5, but the butterfly was more planer. I shoot at F11 to increase the depth of field and use a flash to to be able to keep the time relative short. Butterflys tend not to be very still.
I would think a 240mm should be fine. The difference I saw was that I had to be further away for the minimum focal distance. I usually shoot within a few inches with a 100mm macro lens. If I want more DOF (Depth of Field), I go the aperature mode with a small aperature, a tripod and a remote release. That is, if things are very still. You just need to balance the environmental conditions with what your doing.

Rich

[raynerj1]

I have found that when I am using a pretty high zoom (200-300MM) the depth of field can be reduced dramatically. I usually shoot about F25 when zooming in and about 100 exposure in full daylight. The background fuzzes if not totally disappears but the subject is in sharp focus. That is, if the subject is about 3-4 inches within the focal point and the background is about 12 inches beyond that. This is when I am taking flower pics.

If I was zooming in on something much further away the depth of field would be much larger than 3-4 inches. Your depth of field is a function of the focal distance. The further the focal distance the larger the depth of field. The closer the focal distance the narrower the focal distance.

If you look close at the butterbly above you will see the head is in sharp focus, the foreground wing is slightly unfocused and the background wing is very unfocused. That is what keyed me in to you using a zoom and having a low F-Stop on this picture.

Bill & Rich... Very well said!

[CACollazo]

Thanks everybody your help...

[raynerj1]

I shot about 500 pictures today and found that F25 can give you a bit too much depth of field... I guess there is no safe F-Stop... It changes from shot to shot... Check to see if your camera has a F-stop Preview... I forget what the manual calls it right now.

On my camera there is a switch I can throw that will open or close the iris down to the proper setting so you can see if the depth of field is okay... Still a pain to use... Makes the view finder dimmer... It is really designed for far away zoom and not close up zoom, but it does work.