Simple Solutions

Both my neighbors have butterfly bushes. When I redo my landscape, I'll have one too. It is amazing the amount of butterflies, bees, humming birds, etc. that stop by these trees for a quick sip of sweet nectar.

I've been trying to take pictures of the butterflies and was running into, what I thought was trouble with my ability to focus on the subject. Being relatively old school, I'm not fond of auto focus system for closeups or macros. I can usually focus better than the auto systems anyway, just not as fast.

After about fifty average, slightly blurry shots of butterflies, my ape brain was struggling to figure out why I couldn't get the shot. Well yesterday, a storm was coming and the sky was darkening. Any territorial habits that the butterflies had shown previously were gone. The butterflies were out en mass, so I decided to fire off a few shots. I brought out the flash and whamo, the first shot was sharp as a tack. I fired off a few more with the same results. As the rain began to come down, I thought to myself, after all my years of photography, my experience taught me bright sun + regular flash + macro = faded colors, washed out pictures or worse, glare. Could I have been wrong?

Today I woke to sunny conditions. Once again the butterflies were out floating in the warm summer air. I went out with flash ready. I took a few shots and to my surprise, the shots came out excellent. I wish I had known this before wasting all of my time attempting the earlier shots. My experience had not taken into account that the sway of the branches and the constant motion of the butterflies was ensuring that no matter how fast I snapped the shutter, without flash, I was not going to get the shot off clean. This was a real compare x to life moment.  It will have to be a lesson for the girls this weekend.

1. No matter how much experience you have, the best way may not be the way you have always done it.

2. Always analyze before you assume.

3. Don't be afraid to try different or unusual solutions to seemingly common problems.

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