www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

I have noticed that when you see a butterfly on an image, say a skipper, it appears big, but thats becuase you want to show people all of it clearly and so you zoom in close to it to get it that way. Thats fine.

I saw my first dingy skipper this year and I could not belive how small it looked, even when I knew what size it was. It was the same when I saw D.O.B too, I thought they were bigger, and as for brown argus, if you did not know what you were looking for, you'd probably miss them.

Any people out there know how to get a good shot of say a butterfly and moth, and make it look its size, e.g. dingy skipper on a small daisy flower would show its size or like this one I took, a clouded beauty on my finger shows its size too:



any other of you guys got some ideas? With larger species such as red admirals, swallowtails etc.... its fine, you don't have to get them looking big, you'd notice them if you saw them, but small skippers, brown argus and things similar, you would not really notice unless you knew what you were looking for.

I know what you mean, Dave... the same applies the other way. When you see a Swallowtail or SW Frit for the first time, it strikes you how big they are!

In my opinion, there is a temptation among people to fill the frame with the butterfly so that the insect takes up 75-80% of the picture. This removes any context with the environment and, as you say, makes it difficult to gauge the size of the insect.

If you pull back a little bit, so that the butt'fly takes up only 20-33% of the frame, you invariably include some part of the scene that allows you to gauge the size.

If you just want to illustrate the size, i believe the time honoured way is to (somehow) include a great british penny in the shot!

Chris

If you look at the pictures entered in the monthly comp, most people want to show as much detail as possible hence they get in as close as possible (me included). However if you look at gwenhwyfas picture in the September comp you can see that putting in some background puts the butterfly in context and also makes a stunning photograph. It depends to some extent what the picture is going to be used for. For a photographic record of what you have seen I guess a close up is best but to make an interesting photograph a background of some kind helps.
Dave