Butterflies, Moths and Assorted Insects...

AlanF

Desperately seeking birds
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Aug 16, 2012
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AlanF: thanks.

The first of the three (Buckeye) images above...would the R5 find/focus on...the eyes?
Not with those fake eyes on the wings! I always use point focus without tracking for butterflies and usually for perched dragonflies, though the R5 often does pick up a dragonfly eye.
 
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josephandrews222

Square Sensors + AI = Better Images
Jul 12, 2013
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I always get mixed up with blues, but I am pretty sure that this is a male short-tailed blue (cupido argiades).
It wasn't really cooperative and moved a lot. So I didn't manage to align the plane of focus to the wings.

View attachment 204991View attachment 204992View attachment 204993
...interesting (to me) to compare these images (from Europe?) with those that follow (from the midwest USA):

IMG_0147 picasa crop.JPGIMG_0247.JPG

...these little ones are about 1/2 inch in 'height'...and like Maximilian (on the Euro analogues of these) getting a nice focus is difficult. But I wonder if the coloring/marking on the wings itself is a bit poorly defined and not so sharp itself.

And those 'colors'...are they a result of 'real' pigments or is the appearance of color due to diffraction effects?
 
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Maximilian

The dark side - I've been there
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Nov 7, 2013
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...interesting (to me) to compare these images (from Europe?) with those that follow (from the midwest USA):
Correct. I shot my pics in South-Eastern Germany.

Fascinating that your butterfly looks pretty the same as my short-tailed blue (cupido argiades).
Wikipedia says about its distribution:
"In the Palearctic it is found from north of Spain via Central Europe, Southern Europe and Eastern Europe then east to Central Asia and Japan. It is missing in much of Italy and the south of Greece and Turkey. The butterfly flies from May to September depending on the location. An isolated population in Southern Armenia[3] is on wing starting from late April. In the Oriental region it is found in India."

But I found the Western tailed-blue (cupido amyntula) and the Eastern tailed-blue, (cupido comyntas) in this list of Lycaenidae in North America.
So it seems yours in the Midwest is one of those close relatives.

And those 'colors'...are they a result of 'real' pigments or is the appearance of color due to diffraction effects?
Both "effects" are possible with butterfly wings. Depends on the species. I have no idea when which effect is taking place.
 
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Maximilian

The dark side - I've been there
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Nov 7, 2013
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Ever seen such an aggregation of firebugs (pyrrhocoris apterus)?
For me it's the first time. But thanks to German Wikipedia I could find this description (translated):
"The common firebug is often found in aggregations with different stages of development. One can often find hundreds of individuals in sunny places or at the base of trunks of lime trees. The aggregations are held together by pheromones. However, due to the secretion of defence secretions, which also act as an alarm pheromone, they quickly dissolve."
This indeed was a lime tree. And note the different stages of development.
5D4, 24-105L @105mm, second pic close to MFD.

firebug_2022_01.JPGfirebug_2022_02.JPG
 
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