I just had to upload this one, partially to break up two posts that are far too similar. But this is me doing my “Snow White” thing while setting up some shots the other day. A butterfly (I can’t be bothered to determine the species) alighted on my left bicep and stayed there for no small amount of time, tapping its way down my arm with its proboscis. While I suspect it was only in search of the salt from my sweat, there’s always the possibility that it was an alien butterfly and I was being probed. Come to think of it, I can’t remember everything I did that day. I probably should check for implants…
Given the proximity and the length of the macro lens, I couldn’t actually take this with the camera held to my eye, since the butterfly was too close. Instead, I tried for the likely most accurate settings and shot blind, aimed crossways with my right hand. I have a lot of frames that were misses, but considering the short depth of field of macro work, this actually ain’t too bad.
This also demonstrates one of the traits you often have to work around with macro. This was taken in bright sunlight with a normal background, but at 1/200 second, f22, ISO 100. Those settings were necessary to stop any camera shake, induce the highest depth of field, and maintain the best quality respectively, but the strobe was also set for the short working distance. The settings let in too little ambient light to register the background at all, so the only illumination is from the strobe. Had it been powerful enough to illuminate the background, the butterfly would have been burned out to pure white. This is where a second strobe, or even a studio light, comes in, but that takes no small amount of arranging itself.
I actually leaned closer to the shamrock plants on the porch for a nicer background, but never got framing nailed before my friend decided the shamrock flowers looked tastier than my arm…