
Originally Posted by
Norm Dulak
Hi Bill.
Hi Norm, and thanks for the thoughtful comments.
Photographs of critters attacking other critters seem to be in vogue these days. But I would not regard this situation as a "pleasant surprise." The butterfly on the flower should be the focus of this image IMHO.
Actually the butterfly was the focus. As I mentioned above, I was quite surprised to see the inbound wasp when I looked at the image on the monitor. Being in vogue wasn't on my mind.
As you have noted, the sun was harsh. Thus what was a beautiful butterfly, I'm afraid was not well captured.
In fact, it was well-captured. The histogram is perfect, and the raw image looks just fine. But I could have done a much better job of processing the image. I was trying to fit it in hastily on a busy day. Lesson learned.
In the future, if I were you I would avoid the attack aspect, and focus my attention on beautiful butterflies well exposed on pretty flowers. But that's just my opinion, and I'm sure others might well disagree.
As mentioned, I wasn't looking for an attack. I was, however, happy to have 'captured' the image. Frankly, I am a bit weary of animal and insect portraits. I enjoy them, but I always hope for more. Particularly action that tells a story of their life at that instant.
BTW, did the butterfly survive the attack?
It did survive being hit. In fact at the time, I thought it had simply jumped off the blossom to move to another.
On a technical level, please tell me why you set your camera at auto ISO 1600 while using flash, when there was harsh sunlight?
I set my camera on auto ISO, and the camera chose 1600 for the image. I was using flash for two purposes -- fill light for harsh sun angles as well as freezing flight action, which is what I was really trying to capture. To no avail, I might add.
And why was your camera set at 1/4000 sec when flash in harsh sunlight was used?