www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

I was looking through my pics and wondered, what was the first shot I got of either a moth or butterfly? And it was this:



Silver Y Moths feeding. I remember in 2006 there was a large number appearing in this field not far from my house and having my first digital camera, I wanted to go and try it out, it was so easy to find the moths, I kept running into hundreds as I walked past and these were a breeze to shoot, focusing was tricky as this camera won't focus close, have to shand a bit back. I remember this year well cause it was the year in Mountstewart where I live, we had influxes of large numbers of Silver Y Moths and quite a few clouded yellow and lots of painted ladies/red admirals/small tortoiseshells etc.

Taken 2 years ago with my old Vivitar 4345 point and shoot (basically its rubbish for insects and detail, but this came out well) I know that once I knew thr camera and how to use it, I could not get the same shot again, it was cruddy for insects/plants ect, only real good for people and general point and click stuff.

If anyone can post a pic or remember what the first shot was you took, might be nice to see and bring back memories.

Hi Dave, I was in north Cornwall out on a windy headland,The Moules (not sure of the spelling of that) when this butterfly whizzed past. It was my first ever butterfly pic, and spent ages back home trying to identify it.
That was how it all started really!!
No laughing now !!

Hi
Dave your silver Y moths are excellent by the way

Here is my first ever picture, Speckled Wood.

Mouse

After unsuccessfully chasing a Holly Blue around the garden, I found this (huge) butterfly on the tall Buddleia at the bottom of the garden. I only had a very small compact camera, and took this at arms length trying to gage if I had it in the frame. It took a lot of shots till I got this pic which I was very proud of at the time
Painted Lady, which thanks to this site, I managed to ID all by myself, back in the days when I was a lurker!

Denise

I presume you mean first digital shot because anything that I might have shot on film has got lost. My first digital camera was a Fuji S602Z that I bought second hand in August 2003 for around £270. It was quite advanced for its day and I loved it, because you could use single macro mode from 3-6" away using the screen to compose the image. This was my first butterfly capture, a brown argus, taken just two days after acquiring the camera. The site is now sadly overgrown with bracken. The following day I snapped this very amenable speckled wood, by which time I thought I knew it all and that butterfly photography was dead easy. By the time I discovered that it wasn't I was already hooked on the little sods. Incidently, the date in the exif is wrong. I had learned to take pictures before I learned how to set the date properly.

Here's my first, a Speckled Wood from May 2004 in Walberton churchyard. I wasn't really into butterflies at the time, orchids were much more my thing. I had a good knowledge of common butterflies however, as I was very interested as a child.

Camera: HP Photosmart 715

Alexander

Just to say, nice shots and what I meant was any shot. If you cannot post it, you can just say when it was or whatever.

My first photo was of a mating pair of Puss moths - the female of which I'd reared. I must have been about 11 - so that would be 1973

I clearly remember rearing a caterpillar that I'd found, and which had built a cocoon on a piece of bark the previous summer. Using my observer's guide, I knew it would overwinter, and put the bark in the garage and forgot about it. Until, that is, one morning, when my dad woke me up to tell me that there was a "giant moth" on the outside of the garage. I rushed downstairs and found the pair of moths in cop on the garage wall. I let them be - but that event made my week (at least!). I took a photo with a camera my dad had bought me for my birthday.

It was moments like that which have turned me into the anorak I am. And here I am, 35 years later, creating websites on the same subject Some people never grow up.

Cheers,

- Pete

I still have some of the pictures I took when I was a child, in Suffolk. This one is labelled '1978' on my website but I think I just invented that date. It could be anything from 1974-1978. My camera was a second-hand Practica Nova I 35mm SLR and it went everywhere with me until it died of old age in 2004.



(I recently reprocessed the processed image to un-sepia it, hence the graininess)

Guy

Fairly sure this was my first - had had my Sigma SD10 and Sigma 105mm macro lens for some time

This Orange tip was my first - taken only a couple of years ago with my 400mm and a 25mm extension tube. I'd been taking pictures of our resident robin when it settled within range.