Monarch Migration
1/800s @ f/5.6 220mm
There seemed to be a lot of monarchs at Lauritzen Gardens in Omaha today. Apparently, the fall migration has begun.
I spent the afternoon there with the DA*60-250mm mounted to the new Pentax K-7. I’m not much into shooting flowers so the butterflies were a nice alternative. The light was pretty harsh as it was just a little past noon and only a few clouds in the sky. To make matters worse, it was also very windy. The good news was that in certain areas on certain flowers, there were lots of monarch butterflies within close range. Even though it was very bright, I set the K-7 to iso400 because with the wind blowing the flowers and butterflies flitting about, I had to shoot pretty fast. I got a couple keepers shown here.
I used NIK Viveza in post-processing to even out the brightness of the butterfly wings where the harsh light caused excessive contrast or shadows. Viveza is a Photoshop plug-in that lets you control brightness, contrast, and saturation on a selected area of the image without using layers and masks. It is very handy and I am beginning to get the hang of it.
1/800s @ f/5.6 250mm
Monarchs migrate every spring and fall. According to the University of Kansas Monarch Watch “Unlike most other insects in temperate climates, Monarch butterflies cannot survive a long cold winter. Instead, they spend the winter in roosting spots. Monarchs west of the Rocky Mountains travel to small groves of trees along the California coast. Those east of the Rocky Mountains fly farther south to the forests high in the mountains of Mexico. The monarch’s migration is driven by seasonal changes. Daylength and temperature changes influence the movement of the Monarch.”
According to the KU web page, the monarch migration usually peaks in Nebraska in mid September. I’m not sure I witnessed migrating monarchs, but there were plenty to photograph. They may be ahead of schedule because of the cool summer. I will probably try again over the course of the next several weeks but I’ll make a point to go early or late in the day to take advantage of better light.
BTW, I considered a tighter crop on the second one; what do you think? C&C always welcome and encouraged on this site.