After realizing how much I was hearing this year I had heard last year in St. Louis and forgotten, I decided to write a few things down.

Art

Simplify. Simplify. Simplify.

Get low.

Use a polarizing filter to get rich colors in landscape photography.

Biology

Some ants have stingers, not just fangs.

Toads have been recategorized. There are no more Bufos left in North America!

Butterflies aren’t even a clade. They’re just different families of moths that have evolved along similar lines.

Lenses

The Tamron 11-18mm wide angle zoom has good close focus for insect shots, 1:8 maximum magnification, possibly more with extension tubes. There may well be other wide angle zooms that do equally well. Perhaps the 17-40L?

The difference between a wide and long shot, in the picture itself, is perspective and foreshortening.

Magnification

Try reversing a cheap 28mm lens, possibly with extension tubes, for high magnification on a budget. (Not as easy to use as an MP-65 though.)

Kenko extension tubes are pretty good. Buy a set.

Try using about 50mm of extension on the 100mm macro lens (though this only works for greater than 1:1, and closer than the usual minimum focusing distance). I.e. it actively prevents you from shooting butterflies, dragonflies, and other large, fast insects. This may work better on a full frame camera since the larger sensor can image a larger insect.

Flash

Set flash to manual, not TTL/ETTL when using full flash and manual mode on the camera. Start at 1/8 power and adjust to taste.

Try moving the flash off camera. In particular get a cheap $30 Cowboy Studio radio receiver. You don’t need the fancy pocket wizard because for macro photography you don’t need to adjust the flash on the remote.

The numbers on flash units are guide numbers. For macro work a 430 EX is plenty. You don’t need the 580 EX II or 600 EX for macro work.

Use Vellum/Mylar (which you can get at art supply stores) or a cut-up bleach bottle to build simple diffusers.

Not all batteries are created equal. Lithium-Ion batteries cost more but last longer. In particular they last about as long as the same number of regular batteries you could buy for the same price.

Workflow

Lightroom supports hierarchical processing.

Support

For tripod work, consider the large Really Right Stuff BH-55 Ballhead.

Travel

Get a customs form listing all the serial numbers of your equipment before leaving the country to avoid problems on reentry.

Get a Moose Peterson MP-1 bag for use when travelling on regional jets.

The Weather Channel is not a reliable source of information about airline cancellation/reschedule policies.

Still to Come

Thoughts on equipment, specifically the Sigma 180 f/2.8 OS Macro, the Canon MP-65, and the Canon Macro Twin Lite MT-24EX.

FYI, these settings are all for relatively stationary insects and a 1:1 100mm macro lens. Butterflies and dragonflies (i.e. large flying insects) with a telephoto lens are something else entirely.

Daytime, no flash

• f/8, maybe f/11 for deeper insects
• shutter speed 1/400 s or faster
• ISO 400-1600 as necessary to get the shutter speed up.
• Check your histogram

Consider using a tripod, cable release, and/or reflector.

Daytime, fill flash

Still need to figure this one out, or whether it even makes sense.

Daytime, full flash

• f/11
• ISO 100
• shutter speed 1/250 s
• Flash exposure compensation -2/3 to -1
• Use an external battery pack

The key here is that with those settings, ambient light is nigh on nonexistent. The real shutter speed is the flash duration, which is much less than 1/250s. However backgrounds will be black.

Photographing Insects at Night

• Set the camera on M. Av and Tv modes don’t really work with the flash, and work even less when the flash doesn’t fire.
• f/22 or f/25
• ISO 100
• Shutter speed to 1/250s, maximum sync speed. At that aperture, only the flash matters anyway.
• Flash exposure compensation 0
• Manual focus, usually set at the minimum focusing distance
• Use an external battery pack

Sachem Skipper, Atalopedes campestris, Hodges #4049
Prospect Park, 2009-09-20

However the real taxonomic story is a little more complicated. Perhaps noticing all publicity the American Museum of Natural History got by demoting Pluto from planetary status, the Los Angeles Museum of Natural History put up signs in its live butterfly and moth exhibit telling visitors that there is no scientific difference between butterflies and moths.

Traditionally butterflies and moths were distinguished because butterflies had clubbed antennae and moths didn’t. However taxonomically the butterflies seem to have evolved from the moths (more specifically the geometers) so they’re really just a subgroup of moths. Of course, by that logic a bird is just a funny kind of reptile (or birds and reptiles are just funny kinds of dinosaurs). DNA studies over the last couple of decades have been upending pretty much everything we ever thought we knew about species, and that seems likely to continue for several decades more, probably leading to a major rethinking of just what a species is anyway, and how many branches the tree of life has. The convenient “King Philip Couldn’t Order Five Good Sandwiches” mnemonic we learned in high school is just way too simple to describe reality.

And, oh yes, the skippers. These have traditionally been considered butterflies, but superficially they resemble bright, day-flying moths. Also, their antennae have neither clubs nor feathers but rather hooks. Does that make them their own group? Taxonomically, skippers are placed in the superfamily Hesperioidea, while all other North American butterflies are placed in Papilionoidea. There are also a few dozen species of Hedylidae in Central America and points south that used to be considered geometer moths, but have more recently been changed to butterflies.

One taxon up is the order Lepidoptera (scale-winged insects) which includes butterflies, moths, Hedylidae, and skippers. There’s no one grouping that includes both butterflies and skippers. Evolutionarily, I’m not sure what, if anything, we know about when or where skippers evolved. Did they evolve from non-skipper butterflies or vice versa? Or did skippers and butterflies each evolve separately from the moths? Are the Hedylidae another offshoot of the moths or a missing link between the moths and butterflies? Whatever we do think we know is likely to change in the next couple of decades anyway.

Straight-Toothed Sallow, Eupsilia vinulenta, Hodges #9933
Ridgewood Reservoir, Queens, New York, June 9, 2007

I’ve never seen an adult, but you can see some pictures at BugGuide, Butterflies and Moths of North America, and the Moth Photographers Group.

Haematopis grataria
Floyd Bennett Field, Brooklyn, 2009-10-04

Chickweed Geometer is a common moth around here at this time of year.

• BugGuide
• Moth Photographer’s Group

Nomophila nearctica, Hodges#5156
Fort Tilden, Queens, 2009-10-04

This is a largish member of the Crambid Snout Moths, and is also known as the American Celery Webworm, the Celery Stalkworm, Clover Nomophila, and False Webworm.

• BugGuide
• Moth Photographer’s Group
• Butterflies & Moths of North America

Atteva punctella, Hodges#2401
Sandy Hook, New Jersey, 2009-09-26

This native Ermine Moth species is active in the daytime. It’s originally from Florida where it feeds on the native Paradise Tree Simarouba glauca. However it’s expanded its food sources to include a number of exotic trees including Tree of Heaven, Ailanthus altissima; and has thus managed to expand its range northward as far as Canada. It’s the only member of its genus in North America.

• BugGuide
• Moth Photographer’s Group
• Wikipedia

Augochlora pura
Prospect Park, Brooklyn, NY, 2009-09-20