Thank you so much Guy, I am not disappointed at all. Although cirsii would have been a new species for me, I would far rather have a positive ID than not know for sure. Interestingly, even with the information you have given me, I wouldn't have reached malvoides using Tolman or Lafranchis. The Sierr...

I wonder if anyone can help me with the ID of the attached Skipper. Seen in the Sierra Nevada last week. I was thinking Pyrgus cirsii, but I am far from confident with my Skipper ID ability!!
Thank you.

Thank you Jack,
I will try not to put it in a puddle or run over it!

Thank you so much Guy. Please don't feel responsible about my camera choice. There really isn't very much choice in the price range! I am looking forward to giving the camera a good try out, if we get any decent weather, which doesn't look too likely in the near future!! We had a bit of brighter wea...

Final update on the Lumix FZ330: It seemed that the fault with the camera was how it processed or stored the pictures. The butterfly would be beautifully in focus as I depressed the button, but the preview was noticeably very poor. Having been sent back for repair twice without resolving the issue I...

I have seen this species in Tenerife and Mauritius. In Mauritius the males are always white and the females have a white or yellow form.

That is a great haul Pete. I guess a "problem" with visiting such places with enormous numbers of species is that, with so many being so similar, it is very difficult to identify them unless they stop for a while, or allow a nice picture of the upper and underside! This isn't really too mu...

Fantastic report, Pete, of what sounds like a wonderful trip. I noticed you had posted a couple of weeks ago, but decided to save reading your post until all our Christmas guests had left, so that I could concentrate on it better!! It looks like you saw a great variety of butterflies. Some of those ...

Thank you for thinking about me Guy!! That is the sort of standard of picture that my FZ150 produced and still does (but not consistently). An update on the FZ330 saga: I contacted John Lewis again and said I wasn't happy with the camera and asked for a refund. They said they wouldn't accept it back...

Thank you Jack,
That is good to hear about the Canon Powershot. I have had a couple of Canon compact cameras which gave great results. Mind you, my old FZ150 gave great results, too! I just need to see if I can somehow persuade Panasonic to let me return the camera for a refund.

Here in the Scottish Borders this year we had a dry spring, but much of the year has been cloudy and windy. Really, we only had one good week in June and one good week last month!! The previous year was really dry from April until September. I have noticed this year that there were far fewer Ringlet...

I thought I should update everyone on the camera situation. I contacted John Lewis Partnership, who I had bought the camera from on-line. They gave me the option to take it to one of their stores (nearest a couple of hours away) or to phone Panasonic and they gave me a contact number. After a discus...

Thank you so much for the details of all the settings you have found to be best. I ended up sending the camera to Panasonic's recognised repairers after I phoned them last Tuesday. They had me check various settings and then said they had run out of solutions, so I was to send it in. Hopefully I wil...

Thank you everyone for your thoughts and comments. They are very much appreciated. At last, at the end of our four-day September break the rain stopped this afternoon and the sun even came out for a while. It was quite windy, but at least there was a bit more light to allow me to take some trial pic...

Thank you Ian for the links to the reviews. Having read them, I would expect my FZ330 to be producing much better pictures. As I have said previously my FZ150 produced much better photos. Much of this may be down to my own inadequacies. I don't find the manual (DVD version included) easy to understa...

Thank you Guy, A great idea. Yes, I still have the old camera, so I will try some comparisons. I was conscious that there is no direct comparison between the two pictures, but just wanted to try to illustrate that pictures taken with my old FZ150 showed individual scales and hairs and more often tha...

Thank you Bertl, I suspect the FZ200 is an updated FZ150. I was really happy with the FZ150 until recently when it struggled to focus sharply and I suspect this was just down to wear and tear. If they had still made the FZ150 I would have just bought another! I did find a Graham Houghton video when ...

Thank you Mike. What you say is very interesting. I have dad a look at the settings and can's see anything about a 2X magnification or zoom. I tend to only use the optical zoom and not the digital zoom beyond that. Actually, with the FZ330, I find that it sometimes struggles to focus on a butterfly,...

Thank you Jack,
I will play around with exposures. I have just been using it on the Auto setting up until now. It does seem so much more complex than my old camera.
Nick

I have had a Lumix FZ150 since 2012 and it has been a fantastic camera. After several thousand pictures, I felt it was getting a bit worn out and the auto-focus was a little hit or miss. So a couple of months ago I bought myself a Lumix FZ330. Initial impressions were that it was a quality camera. H...