Photographing Butterflies and Dragonflies
by John Bulpitt FRPS

One of my early attempts at nature photography in the early 1990’s, involved trying to capture butterflies on Buddleia bushes in the garden.  My kids still laugh at the memory of me placing a step stool by each bush and rushing round trying to snap Peacocks, Red Admirals, Small Tortoiseshells and the occasional Comma. 

I learned that the butterflies were not very confiding, the light was impossibly harsh, buddleia generally makes a poor backdrop and my pictures were rarely sharp where it mattered.

The basic mistake I was making was in trying to photograph at the butterfly food plant whereas what I needed to do was to find the caterpillar food plant.  This was an early introduction to the fact that consistently successful nature photography requires detailed knowledge of the subject.


Chalkhill Blues on Knapweed

Finding a good source for the caterpillar food plant for any given species and arriving at around 8.30/9.00am on a warm day at the right time of year is vital if you want decent butterfly shots.  At this time it is relatively easy find newly emerged individuals or mating pairs.  If you are careful both individuals and pairs can be moved into more advantageous positions (using a twig or grass stalk, not your fingers!).  Tidying up of the background is also possible.

As far as dragonflies (and damselflies) are concerned, a one day workshop with George McCarthy taught me the basics.  Two books have proved particularly helpful for identifying locations.

“Butterflies and Dragonflies, a site guide”, Hill and Twist, ISBN 1 900159 05 8, and
“Field guide to the Dragonflies and Damselflies of GB”, Steve Brooks, ISBN 0 9531399 0 5.

These are excellent to get you going but it is surprising how much local knowledge is available through Wildlife trusts, Natural History societies etc.  For my home county, Bedfordshire, there is a comprehensive book on dragonflies.  A Google search will almost certainly reveal similar gems for other counties.


Migrant Hawker patrolling reed beds

I find dragonflies fascinating.  It is always a treat to sit in the garden on a summer evening with a glass of wine, watching their extraordinary aerial acrobatics as they hunt.  Dragonflies belong to one of the most ancient orders of insects and have been around for about 300 million years.  Fossils of the early dragonflies indicate that they were about 5 times the size of today’s species. 

One needs to be up at dawn (which is seriously early in June/July) to find newly emerged or more mature dragonflies covered in dew waiting for the sun to dry their wings before they can fly.  Opportunities to photograph pairs mating and ovipositing (egglaying) occur at a more civilised hour.  Flight shots are best attempted early to mid morning as males patrol reed beds looking for newly emerged females.  (As a generalisation the females of most insect species mate within hours of emerging from the pupa.)

Equipment necessary for successful butterfly and dragonfly photography. 

For everything apart from flight shots I normally use a macro lens (Tamron 90 in my case), sometimes with an extension tube.  Coupled with my Canon 20D which enhances the focal length by 60%, this enables me to fill the frame with even the smallest species.  At dawn I may use a tripod but generally I find tripods more trouble than they are worth for these subjects, as however careful one is it is very difficult to avoid disturbing the surrounding vegetation, and hence the subject itself.  A bean bag and occasionally a reflector can be very helpful for butterfly photography.


Common Darter with larval skin

For macro work I always try to use the depth of field preview as it often reveals intrusive background details.  Because you are so close to the subject depth of field can be measured in millimetres and so there is usually a trade off between rendering the subject pin sharp and blurring the background.  I usually find that f8/11 gives the right balance providing you are careful to get the subject parallel to the film plane.  It is also important to choose the focus point carefully to ensure that the subject is sharp at a point of your choosing.  I always use auto focus for macro work, set to A1 servo/ continuous autofocus with motor drive switched on.  I appreciate that most nature photographers use manual focus but I find that even on a still day there is some perceptible movement when my lens is 6/12 inches from the subject and this is a method that works for me.  Where appropriate I use fill flash with a setting of –1 2/3rds.  With a hand held macro lens I try to set a shutter speed of at least 1/200th. 

For flight shots I use a 70-200 lens with a 1.4 coverter coupled with a Canon 1D mk2, which has a very fast autofocus.  In both situations I shoot in raw format because exposure errors, which are very easy to make with these subjects, are much easier to correct in Photoshop. A1 servo and motordrive are used all the time for flight shots but I never use flash.  The aperture is set to f4 because the efficacy of the continuous autofocus is optimal at this level.  I look for a minimum shutter speed of 1/1000th.  It is vital to prefocus on a point approximately the same distance as you expect the subject to be, because otherwise the autofocus will hunt and you may never lock onto the subject when it flies into the frame.

In these situations, especially macro, exposure is tricky.  When I used film I just had to accept the cost of bracketing.  With digital I check the histogram regularly and err on the side of underexposure.

My next challenge is to try to capture butterflies in flight using a hand-held camera.  In the unlikely event that I succeed I will let you know.