# Butterfly on my Thumb



## NateS (Jun 2, 2010)

This guy got stuck in my garage the other night.  He was pretty docile...hopefully not due to the bug spray to keep spiders out of the garage.  Anyway, he let me hold him on my thumb for quite awhile before I set him outside on the deck.


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## NateS (Jun 3, 2010)

bump...surprised nobody likes my buddy


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## supraman215 (Jun 3, 2010)

That is a tight Macro. I would have tried to close it (aperture) up a little to get a little bit more DOF.


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## Zhieson (Jun 3, 2010)

I like the third and last picture.  Lot of detail you never see with the naked eye.

How did you get him to stay for so long?


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## NateS (Jun 3, 2010)

supraman215 said:


> That is a tight Macro. I would have tried to close it (aperture) up a little to get a little bit more DOF.



Can only go so far before you lose too much sharpness.  I was already at f/13 and for every step past f/13 I go I lose sharpness.  I could have done some hand focus stacking but I didn't want to keep him too long before putting him out.




Zhieson said:


> I like the third and last picture.  Lot of detail you never see with the naked eye.
> 
> How did you get him to stay for so long?



Thanks.  Don't know how...he just hung out for a long time.  I had to pretty much force him to get off my thumb and onto the deck railing when I was done.


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## Overread (Jun 3, 2010)

Grr I hate you for getting shot 2 to work! I've tried a few times and keep gettting one eye in and one eye out 
I've had similar friends, when they get cold they really do like to cling to anything they can find that is warm and stay there. Though in my case the butterfly was also soaking wet and could hardly move his wings about. 

supraman215 - if my experiences are any judge I don't think you can get much more depth to these shots without either focus stacking or sacrificing sharpness to stop down even more


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## supraman215 (Jun 3, 2010)

Gotcha. I don't have a macro lens so I wasn't really sure how it all worked. Thanks. f13 is pretty closed.


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## Meshal (Jun 6, 2010)

hey NateS...

im really impressed with ur photos..

i have Nikon D90 << like urs 

did u use an extention tube in taking this picture?

nd i like ur budy


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## NateS (Jun 6, 2010)

Meshal said:


> hey NateS...
> 
> im really impressed with ur photos..
> 
> ...



Thanks.  Always appreciate the comments (from you too Overread and Supraman).

D90 is a great camera and I think I"ve decided that it is probably the best camera from Nikon that you can get for this type of shooting (short of a D3x).  Even a D300s wouldn't do any better for these types of shots.

I don't use any extension tubes.  I use a Tamron 180mm f3.5 which gets me at 1:1 magnification.  I'm going to be getting a Kenko pro300 1.4tc soon which will put me at 1.4:1.  Extension tubes don't work as well with the longer focal lengths.  I would need 72mm of extension tubes to get to 1.4:1 so the TC seems like a more reasonable method.


I do use a Tamron 180mm, but a Tamron 90mm or even Sigma 105mm would be able to get pretty much the same results with only a bit of sacrifice in bokeh (and focus distance).


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## D-B-J (Jun 6, 2010)

great shots!


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## LaFoto (Jun 6, 2010)

How cool are THESE :shock: !!! Waaay cool. Very, very, VERRRY nice!


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## Meshal (Jun 6, 2010)

NateS said:


> Meshal said:
> 
> 
> > hey NateS...
> ...



wow

this image was taken by Tamron !! it's very good..

i was almost going to buy Tamron 90mm macro lens.. but i decided at the end to spend more money and i bought the nikon 105mm

i thought of buying an extension tube cuz sometimes u can't get very close to insects.. especially if they move a lot!! 

but nice shot man.. I like it.. and i like the spiky hair


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## icassell (Jun 6, 2010)

#2 is absolutely awesome, Nate!  The others are great too, but #2 floored me!


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