Butterfly photography again

Years back I published a post on the Canon 55-250mm EFS as a budget friendly butterfly lens on my Canon APS-C bodies.  Times have moved on, I now use Olympus/OM Systems micro 4/3 equipment, and a recent day at The Garden House when I managed to capture these male and female Orange Tip butterflies (Anthocharis cardamines) feeding on Sweet Rocket, Hesperis matronalis, reminded me of how I now use my Olympus 40-150mm f2.8 PRO and 1.4 x teleconverter as my go to combination for shooting these flying flowers.

The native lens has a minimum focusing distance of 0.7m - just over 2 ft - and a magnification at 150mm of 0.21x. By adding the 1.4x teleconverter the minimum focusing distance stays the same but the magnification increases at the now 210mm end to 0.3, allowing tighter framing.  This is the difference:

150mm on native lens

210mm on native lens + 1.4x teleconverter

Effectively I have the equivalent in full frame terms of a close focusing 100-400mm f4 zoom (actually 112-420mm if you need to quibble).  All with Olympus / OM systems PRO image quality and rugged weatherproof build.  Any compromise in image quality from adding the teleconverter is hardly noticeable.  Yes it's a little heavier than my previous Canon 80D/55-250mm combination but the results are far better.

As I've referenced in previous posts, the combination on the OM-1 it also effectively supports hand held focus stacking.  So a five image stack with a compliant subject such as this Green-veined white butterfly (Pieris napi) provides me with both greater depth of field on the subject and even better background blur and separation than the f9 aperture I was using for the previous shots.

The full image, slightly cropped

100% crop of the butterfly head

In the field this combination of relatively light weight, great stabilisation with the Olympus/OM System IBIS, close focusing to throw more pixels on the subject while keeping a good working distance, handheld stacking and excellent image quality means that I have far more flexibility when pursuing butterflies in their habitat.  As demonstrated by these few shots from previous years

Brimstone

Green veined white in flight

Meadow brown feeding on yarrow

So, a combination that's yielding excellent results in a compact and relatively lightweight package, and, just as importantly, within my budget.  Yes I might lust after the new 50-200mm f2.8 PRO but that's way beyond what I can earn from my image sales - and that sets the budget.

 

OM System 100-400mm MK II - some lessons learned

I mentioned in my recent post that I'd acquired the Mk II iteration of the OM 100-400mm for it's sync IS.  I also mentioned that I hadn't had that much chance to use it to it's full potential due to the weather being pretty rubbish.  It's still early days but now I've had a better opportunity. with sunny conditions, a visit to Lopwell Dam, where the tidal waters of the Tamar meets the fresh water of the River Tavy, and a couple of hours spare to try some bird photography.  Missing was a great variety of birds but there were a few around.  And a few lessons were learned.

Lesson 1:  Working with 400mm

I was working from the bank and these Canada Geese were on a low tide island about 50 metres away.  Hand holding with both arms supported on a fence rail gave me reasonably sharp shot at ISO 800, 1/1250 sec, f6.3 (wide open).  I've cropped in a little but not excessively.  Examined closely I'd have been better upping the ISO to 1600 to give a slightly sharper - less motion blur - shot at 1/2500 sec.  No wonder other photographers routinely use higher ISOs to keep the speed up, albeit with an increase in noise..

Another part of the flock were on the water, a little closer, allowing me to get some reflection images.  Same settings as before but the goose was larger in the frame giving a little more detail on the feathers.

Again, I've cropped a little to give a better framed image.

The lessons learned?  Even for big birds 400mm on a wide estuary is only just enough reach unless they come close.  Without the camouflage of a hide, most don't.  And 1/1250 sec shutter speed is barely enough.  Take a hit with higher ISOs and noisier images to sharpen the shots.

Lesson 2: Lets try the 1.4x teleconverter

Want more reach?  Add a teleconverter.  As I only own the Olympus 1.4x that was my only choice. 400mm became 560mm; hence more pixels on the birds. That's the upside.  The downside is that that I'm down to f9 wide open, f10 for preference to allow for the slight reduction in wide open image quality from the extra glass.  That means higher ISO to keep shutter speeds up.  Is it worth it to get capture images where more distant birds appear larger in the frame?

Yes.

I'd added the teleconverter when, on the distant bank opposite, a cormorant landed to dry it's wings.  ISO up to 1/1250, f10, 1/1600 sec and shot taken.  I'd popped the camera on a tripod for this as I'd previously found that adding the 1.4x was a bit much for my shaky handholding.  Here's the result:

Lessons learned?  The 1.4x works - but it has a cost, particularly on a slow lens such as the 100-400mm.  With modern noise reduction (more on this in a separate post later) it's worth the risk but there's always that downside.  

Although it can work very well...

Lesson 3:  Try baiting

As photographers do, we chat.  By chance I met up with a more experienced bird shooter and after some conversation he suggested trying a bit of baiting on a fence rail by the estuary bank.  He had some seed, put it out, and within a minute I had a Dunnock landing for a feed.

Then a male chaffinch.

Followed in quick succession by a cock pheasant who'd sauntered down the road in greedy anticipation.

I still had the 1.4x teleconverter on so I had to go to ISO 1600.  Even that was marginal for the Dunnock at 1/320 sec though the detail is certainly there.  As for the pheasant it's not hard to imagine the delight when their flamboyance was first introduced to the UK.

Lessons learned?  Baiting works if done regularly.  The spot these final two shots were taken is regularly baited by other birders.  I'll be joining their number and carry seed with me next time I'm at Lopwell.  Secondly, although I didn't need the 1.4x - straight 400mm would have been enough - it actually held up very well at closer range.

A satisfying day,

Hand held focus stacking

One of the reasons I first tried and then fully switched to Olympus / OM Systems cameras and lenses was the built in focus stacking and bracketing computational facility.  For a lot of my plant portrait, and macro work I need a combination of good depth of field with clean(ish) backgrounds to give both subject separation and sharp focus across as much of the subject as possible.  This image of the spring flowering shrub, Stachyurus praecox 'Rubriflora' is a good example:

Although both stacking and bracketing modes work by taking a sequence of images with a progressive adjustment of the focal plane they work slightly differently.  Bracketing allows up to 999 images, moving the focal plane through the image from the frontmost point chosen.  The images can then be combined into a single image using stacking software (I use Photoshop but others are available). Stacking takes up to 15 images both before and behind the initial focal point and then combines them in camera into a single JPG. When RAW shooting is used the original RAW files are saved with either option but stacking also generates JPGs with the RAW files.  Either method works well to generate images with the necessary characteristics of depth of field across the subject and separation from the background but for best results both require a stable tripod to keep the stack of images aligned.

But using a tripod is not always possible. Which brings me to hand-held focus stacking.  At 75 my hands and posture are not as steady as once they were.  OK, I shake a little. It was only with the more recent purchase of the OM-1 body and it's insanely effective 7 stop IBIS that I've been able to explore hand held focus stacking.

So what works for me?  After experimenting I've set up and assigned to a Custom Function the following:  

• Focus bracketing - set from Camera settings menu 2 and Computational modes menu - ON
• Number of shots = 5
• Differential = 3
• ISO 250mm - to keep noise low
• Aperture f3.2 - to provide the subject to background separation.

I find this works well to give me both a better depth of field across the subject and, when feasible, subject separation.  As with this image of Erythronium tuolumnense, one of the North American trout lilies, taken in a fairly crowded planting.

Or this shot of Snake's Head Fritillaries in a wildflower meadow.

All the images so far were taken were taken with my 40-150 f2.8 PRO lens.  This combines superb image quality, extremely fast transitions between the stacked shots, and close focusing, ideal for plant portraits...

...lichens...

... or larger insect shots, albeit with the 1.4x teleconverter attached:

Also working well is my 60mm macro.  I don't expect to get the depth of field attainable with tripod mounted shots but anything that produces better results than a single shot with a wide aperture is worth while.  Such as this little Heliophilus pendulus hoverfly, photographed in natural light by the side of my little pond. It's not all in focus (abdomen and top wing) but it's given me better depth of field across the eyes and thorax.

What hasn't worked that well is my newly acquired 100-400mm MK II.  Yes, the sync IS is great for single hand held shots but the transition speed between stack shots and the weight of the lens conspire to produce too much movement and blur in the final images.

The only niggle I do have is with the Automatic JPG production.  This is both a boon and a curse.  The boon is that I can immediately see an the in camera stacked shot to see if it has worked and not produced blur or ghosting as images haven't aligned.  The curse is that I also generate 6 JPGs per stack, 5 of which are useless for my immediate workflow and a stacked JPG that I also have to delete if I've done a RAW stack.  

Of course, hand held focus stacking is subject to the same limitations of any bracketing / stacking operation.  Subjects must be still and / or the wind almost zero.  But even so it's a valuable technique to provide a good depth of field on the subject with background separation where appropriate.

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