Small Tortoiseshell butterfly

Ken Rennie

Ken Rennie

Well-Known Member
This is a Eurasian butterfly feasting on a garden bush. I would love to be able to get out of focus backgrounds but I have an equipment problem. This is shot on my Nikon 70-200f4 which front focuses at very close distances so I either shoot stopped down to get the butterfly in focus messing up the background, recalibrate the lens to get the focus spot on at close distances or shoot in live view. I tried the live view approach but that really doesn't work for me with relatively skittish butterflies. I will try recalibrating and shooting at f4 - f5.6 when the rain stops. The real answer, of course, is to buy a genuine macro lens as the 70-200 only goes to 1:5. Ken
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JimFox

JimFox

Moderator
Staff member
Really nice work Ken, it's a pain when a lens front focuses or back focuses, but you did a really nice job working through it. I like both of these. Having to use Live View to capture these would be headache inducing! :eek:

You should calibrate it when you get a chance no matter what, but yeah a lens designed for macro shooting is probably the key.
 
Ken Rennie

Ken Rennie

Well-Known Member
JimFox said:
Really nice work Ken, it's a pain when a lens front focuses or back focuses, but you did a really nice job working through it. I like both of these. Having to use Live View to capture these would be headache inducing! :eek:

You should calibrate it when you get a chance no matter what, but yeah a lens designed for macro shooting is probably the key.
Click to expand...
Jim I have fine tuned the focus on all of my lenses but the 70-200 is calibrated at 30 feet and this gives good results from approx 20feet to infinity where I use it most. At minimum focus distance approx 5ft and it front focuses. I use the excellent method outlined by Bart van der Wolf where you use moire generated by a target on a laptop screen and this only appears when the lens is exactly in focus.
 
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