Red Admiral in backyard

[Shortsighted]

I noticed two Red admiral butterflies on my Echinecea at the same time and thought, why not try a photo? The first shot was taken with a 300mm lens from about 4 meters away and then cropped. The second attempt was at less than half of that distance (my minimum focus is 1.5 meters). The third shot was taken at the same distance but using the pop-up flash as fill light, even though doing so forced my shutter speed down to 1/200 sec, which is a bit slow for first generation IS. There was also a monarch butterfly but it flew away when I entered the scene.

[Ally]

What a splendid photo with the red flower! My roses only attracted cabage white, to the leaf, for some reason.

[Shortsighted]

Tried another technique. I put an EFS-MD adaptor on the camera and then coupled a legacy lens (70mm). The adapter acts as an extension tube for the 70mm lens. Iris between f8 and f11, shutter speed (manual) 1/250sec at ISO 400. I then hand hold and slowly creep closer to the butterfly until I can achieve focus.

[Shortsighted]

This afternoon I spotted FOUR Red Admiral butterflies on my Echinecea simultaneously. This time I tried the same legacy lens + extension tube method but used a different lens (80 - 200mm) so that I could stay farther away from the butterfly. When I set the focal length to 105mm I was able to get fairly close without having antenna touch the lens. I used the same general settings: ISO 800, F11, 1/500 sec - hand-held.

[Ally]

Thanks for including the numbers.

[Shortsighted]

Actually, I neglected to include some numbers. Where as before I used a bellows device (camera mount and lens mount separated by an expandable, light-tight bellows riding atop a rack-and-pinion track), this time I used a rigid #2 extension tube (the medium-sized of the trio of three tubes that comes with any kit). The #1 is only about 5mm long and the #3  is 30 mm long. Of course you can mix it up by combining more than one tube end-to-end providing seven permutations in all. By the time you make your mind up which tube, or combination of tubes to use the subject may have long gone. Ideally I should have Canon tubes with electrical connections for AF but they cost a few hundred bucks and the legacy tubes that I already have are Minolta, which is why I also insert the EF-MD adapter before selective a tube. The viewfinder darkens when you close down the lens iris making focusing challenging so bright sunlight is a prerequisite to using these old things. It's only fitting really ... an old guy using old things. Some day I may get a macro lens and do it properly.