Hello OMers,
I spent the past couple days shooting butterflies (well,
photographing butterflies) with my OM4T and Tamron 60-300mm lens. Bill
Barber and a couple other list members have had positive things to say
about this lens. I'll certainly second this assessment.
To get any sort of magnification, but still stay far enough away
from a camera-shy butterfly, I don't use the "macro" feature of the
lens. Instead, I use the OM 65-116mm telescopic auto extension tube,
usually at 116mm extension, and I vary the focal length to focus. I
found that I was usually shooting at a focal length of 150-200mm.
Few butterflies will wait for a photographer to set up a tripod and
compose a shot. I therefore tried mounting the camera/auto tube/lens
combo onto a Bogen Super Clamp, and then clamping this to the bottom of
the middle or top tube of a Bogen monopod. This lets me get the camera
within inches of the ground (with the monopod compressed) to shoot a
butterfly sipping mud or nectaring at a low flower, yet raise the camera
in seconds (by extending the monopod) to shoot one at waist level. Rest
the monopod on the ground, focus (by zooming) with the left hand (or by
rocking the monopod back and forth slightly if it's extended), and
release the shutter with the right hand. It's steady, and it's quick to
get the set up into shooting position.
The 116mm extension eats a few stops of light, so one needs some
flash. Suppose you're shooting a side view of a butterfly perching on a
flower. If the flash is mounted on the hot shoe, one gets very direct
lighting onto the wing, and structural and textural details are lost.
It's better to mount the flash up and to the side, so the flash hits the
wing at a rather oblique angle. (This helps to show the slight up and
down folding of the wing.) I did this by attaching a Bogen Magic Arm to
the Super Clamp and then mounting a T32 flash onto this. This lets me
place the flash both closer to the subject and at a position to give
oblique lighting.
The downside is that the set up is anything but light.
The upside is that the photos, using Provia 100F, Velvia (ASA 50),
and Ectachrome EBX (ASA 100), were very nice. I shot some very small
spring butterflies known as Pine Elfins, at about 1:2 magnification.
Also out were some of the early summer skippers (Hobomok, Dusted, and
Indian Skippers, to anyone who's interested). An area of lupines in a
jackpine barrens had Karner Blues, and a spruce/tamarac bog had Brown
Elfins and what is known as a Jutta Arctic.
The Tamron lens really came through--I think it's a very sharp,
versatile lens. The OM auto extension tube is also one very nice piece
of equipment. If I wanted to photograph a larger butterfly, I could
reduce the extension (and hence the magnification) in seconds. It
certainly beats a bellows on a tripod for both speed and weight. I also
use the auto extension tube extensively with the 50mm f3.5 and 38mm f2.8
OM macro lenses to photograph spiders and insects. I don't see how I
could do the shots I do without it.
Sorry, no web site yet to show the results just yet--I'll try to get
something posted in a few weeks, however.
Dean Hansen
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