Captured At Last

 

© 2022 Luke T. Bush

For many years I’ve been trying to photograph a white cabbage butterfly.  Every time I approached one of these wary critters it would fly away.  Its circle of fear was like around six feet.

But finally I captured an image of one.  It acted skittish, flying away but not too far from the from the pollen-laden flowers.  As I’ve seen with bees and wasps it was focused on collecting pollen, in this case feeding on it.  It was still somewhat elusive.  My macro lens needed to be a few inches from my subject, easily spooking it.  But a few times it was too busy feasting to be bothered.

With such insects you can’t use a tripod, they move too quick from flower to flower.  So the above image was taken while hand-holding the camera, trying to keep it steady.  The slightest twitch can blur the image due to the great magnification.  The area that was in focus (depth of field) was only 3-4mm deep.  In most of the shots the butterfly’s eye was out of focus but I did nail it with the image above.

Patience and repeated shooting paid off.