Zebra Longwing in Franklin Park Conservatory's "Pacific Island Water Garden"
Hot, sweaty, and surrounded by 2,000 butterflies. Not exactly the situation I anticipated finding myself in on a weekend trip home to Columbus, Ohio. In my mind, the weekend trip was an escape from the seemingly perpetual 45 F and rainy weather we've had in Chicago for the past few weeks. It also functioned an excuse to go try to photograph some exotic animals at The Wilds, the closest thing central Ohio has to Tanzanian big game reserve.
A butterfly rests on a Dale Chihuly.
Unfortunately, rain also hit Columbus, which is how I ended up at the Franklin Park Conservatory. The conservatory, in the outskirts of Bexley, acts as a greenhouse, playground, butterfly sanctuary, sauna, and Dale Chihuly exhibition. My memories of Franklin Park stem mainly from my childhood, when I was more interested in eating birthday cake than looking at boring blown glass sculptures and even more boring plants. I still don't quite get the whole "staring at plants" thing. Thus, I was entirely unprepared for the heat and humidity inside the greenhouse, and even less prepared for the sheer number of butterflies.
Frankly, I had no intention photographing the butterflies. I mean, who on earth wakes up in the morning and thinks to himself, "I think I'm gonna photograph some insects today!"? However, as I wandered through the conservatory I began to photograph the butterflies, which wound up a task difficult as it was entertaining. The challenge: maintain a minimal focal length distance from the butterflies, but still focus precisely on their eraser-sized heads and do it as fast as possible, before they floated away to the next flower.
If I were more prepared or more experienced in macro photography, this might not have been so challenging. Both Digital Photography School and Digital Photography Mag provide great guides for butterfly photography. However, coming from mainly shooting birds and other wildlife, setting focus on a bird's eye suddenly seemed a whole lot easier. The other challenge with shooting butterflies without a macro lens (I was using a 300mm lens) is that if you shoot wide open at f/4 or f/2.8, because you're so close to the butterflies, getting anything but just the focal point in focus is near impossible. Particularly, if I set my focus point on the eye of the butterfly, very little if anything else will be in focus. Thus, I'd recommend stopping down slightly if you're near enough in proximity to the butterfly that you'd have minimum focal length issues.
Despite the challenges, photographing the butterflies proved both rewarding and exciting: the combination of color and speed made for great entertainment and fantastic photographs.
