Photographing Insects: A Butterfly Garden

In a butterfly garden, you can take great insect shots in winter

This Malachite was sitting on a bench. Shot with Canon R7 and RF 100mm macro lens. It looks beautiful with its wings closed. Photo by the author.

During the dark days there are hardly any insects to photograph. One way to solve this is to visit one of the many covered butterfly gardens that exist. I went to the Orchideeënhoeve in the Netherlands which has many tropical butterflies. Here are some shots and tips.

An extended version of this article has appeared in my free book My Journey into Insect Photography that you can download here.

There are butterfly gardens all over the world. Normally they only have tropical butterflies, so these are clearly not the insects I see during the summer. Even though I would prefer to shoot Dutch butterflies this is a good alternative. I visited a number of butterfly gardens in the Netherlands. The images in this article are from my visit to the Orchideeënhoeve. Besides butterflies, you can find lots of flowers, birds, monkeys, and so on.

Large Owl butterfly. When he opens his wings he is blue, but he never sits down with the wings open. Shot with Canon R7 and RF 100mm macro lens. Photo by the author.

Equipment

Taking shots in a butterfly garden requires somewhat different equipment. Because you have to stay on the walkways, you often cannot get very close to the butterflies. So you need a long lens. I used my RF 100 mm macro lens, but sometimes I wished I had my 100–400 mm telephoto lens with me. A macro lens is not really important. Most butterflies are large enough to photograph with a regular lens.

It can be rather dark in these covered gardens. So a flash will definitely help. But better make sure that this is allowed. Photographing is normally not a problem but a flash might be. Ask the staff if you are not certain.

The same holds for a tripod. Not all gardens allow you to use one. The Orchideeënhoeve is rather relaxed in this respect. Basically, their policy is that you should not disturb other visitors. So using a tripod in the middle of the walkway is not a good idea. But a flash is not a problem.

Fog

A serious problem in these gardens is that they are very hot and humid. If you enter them from the outside, your lens easily fogs up. You have to let your camera and lens adapt to the temperature. Best use a weather-sealed camera and lens. Otherwise, you run the risk that moisture gets into the camera and fogs it up internally. You cannot wipe that away and it can damage the camera. Never change lenses while you are in such an environment!

Also, if you use a filter, like a protective UV filter, better remove it from the lens. Fog will appear between the filter and the lens. By the way, some minor fogging can easily be removed in post-processing. All tools have some way to remove haze.

In the Orchideeënhoeve you first walk through a large area with animals and tropical plants. This is warm but not as humid as the butterfly garden. So by the time you enter the butterfly area the camera and lens are warmed up and fog is not much of a problem.

Catonephele Numilia. This one was sitting rather high, so I had to lift the camera and use the tilted screen to position the shot. Shot with Canon R7 and RF 100mm macro lens. Photo by the author.

Behave yourself

As a photographer, you can be pretty selfish. You want to take that particular shot, so you stand in front of a butterfly trying to photograph it from different angles, and waiting for it to open its wings. You try different settings, check the results, and make more shots. You easily forget that you are not alone. Other visitors also want to look at the butterflies. Give them the opportunity, and don’t block the walkways. Best to go at a time when there are few other visitors.

Also, keep on the walkways. It is tempting to try to get closer to some nice butterfly by standing between the plants, but this is clearly not allowed. Don’t touch the butterflies or blow air at them to try to make them open their wings. Respect the environment, even though it is artificial.

Finding the butterflies

You might expect this to be easy in a butterfly garden, but it is not. Butterfly gardens tend to be large and have high ceilings, and most butterflies fly around, which is not good for photography. And you must stay on the walkways. So you have to look very carefully at every plant, bench, pillar, and so on, to find butterflies that sit still.

A Gray Cracker. Shot with Canon R7 and RF 100mm macro lens. Combined in-camera from a stack of 10 images, to get it sharp from wing tip to wing tip. Photo by the author.

Focus stacking

If you cannot use a flash or want some more natural light, you can try to use focus stacking. But as you are normally not allowed to use a tripod, you have to do this handheld. Fortunately, for these large butterflies, you don’t need a large magnification, and there is no wind, so this is relatively easy. But it won’t work when you use a very long lens. The image above and the one below are two examples of focus stacked butterflies.

Another stacked image, this time of a Polydamas Swallowtail. Shot with Canon R7 and RF 100mm macro lens. Combined in-camera from a stack of 10 images. Photo by the author.

Conclusions

Visiting a butterfly garden is a great way to shoot insects during winter. When you are prepared for the heat and humidity (both yourself and your equipment) and go at a time when there are few visitors, you can take some great shots of beautiful butterflies.

Next: Creating Symmetry

Previous: October Shots

Mark Overmars is a dedicated insect photographer that loves to share and regularly publishes about his work and about photography in general. You can visit his website at www.insectphotography.org. Download his free insect photography book at www.insectphotography.org/book.