my first successful butterfly photo in my garden :-)

The darned butterflies in my garden just flutter by so quickly that until today I haven't been able to get one to hold still long enough to take a photo. At this point, I didn't care WHO sat still or what color he was....I just wanted a butterfly pic from my own garden! Dang it! LOL But today one little guy sat on my Leucophyllum long enough for me to get a closed wing shot. He wouldn't open his wings without flying immediatley though, so no luck on that. But at least I got this one! :-)

I have no idea what kind of butterfly he is. hehehe

-Julie

Nice picture Julie. I think the butterfly is probably the Meadow Brown Maniola jurtina, which ranges right across Southern Europe and probably also reaches Israel.

Wow kennedyh! Thanks so much for identifying my butterfly for me :-) I was just so happy to even get a photo...now I'm thrilled to know what he's probably called :-).

I just got a photo guide to the birds in Israel, so I'm very very excited about trying to identify some of the birds that visit our garden. Israel is such an incredibly important stop for an enormous number of migratory birds every year....it's just jaw-droppingly amazing to see some of the birds we get here. Now I need to go get a butterfly book as well. :-) (I'd have done it tonight, but tha particular book store didn't have one).

-Julie

Gee - I thought you were from Illinois! Boy am I dumb...What zone is Israel?

Very, very good shot, Julie! Keep it up. I am living vicariously through you lately.

Shearpamela, don't feel dumb. I really think the international guys and gals here should have a 4 letter code to avoid confusion like this. IL is indeed the abbreviation for Illinois....just happens to be what they use for Israel too LOL.

Thanks for the compliment imway2dumb! :-) Sheesh, what's your real name? I feel DUMB calling you that ROTFLMAO! I got a relatively good shot of a Greenfinch hiding in a tree a few days ago too. I posted it on wildlife and photos already, so I'll just add it here rather than creating a new post. The only ones I've gotten so far, but 1 bird and 1 butterfly is how it starts :-)

-Julie

Your welcome. Its John. What camera do you use? I like the stories behind the foto, too. Big part of living vicariously through someone else.

I have a Canon Power Shot G3 digital. As far as zooming goes, I really prefer a 35mm, because my digital doesn't zoom far enough for my liking. Perhaps when we "need" a new camera, the digital with built-in zooms will be better. You can't beat a digital for clarity though. And with that you can "zoom" in later once you have your photo downloaded to your computer...which of course, is what I did here. :-)

My new hobby of taking photos of things other than my immobile garden plants and my very mobile children has my husband thinking I'm nuts. I go everywhere with the camera now. He tells me he can kinda see how taking photos of birds or butterflies or unfamiliar flowers might be interesting to someon, but he finds it boring as hell. LOL I was so upset yesterday when I was half a second away from getting a shot of a bumblebee I've never seen before....then the kids came running and shouting 'What are you doing Mommy?' rotlf perfect timing...as the bee flew away. How do you say "hold still for a minute" in bee or butterfly? ;-)

-Julie

I went from a 35mm Oly om2 to a moderately priced digital (Canon S1 IS). Prefer the Canon because of pic quality and NO switching lenses, no film and moderate cost.

I nevefr switched lenses with my 35mm either. Just used the same 28/200 zoom which suited my needs just fine. My digital's zoom just doesn't get nearly as close up as that so I can't get as close to my subjects as I'd like without scaring them away LOL. But like I said, you can remedy "some" of that by simply cropping the photo down in 100% view to a size that makes the bird/flower/bee/whatever a much larger portion of your photo. At least that's how I get around not being able to get close-enough. And like you said, no film to develop and immediate gratification are a definite plus. And of course there's teh fact that you can take as many photos as your heart desires until you finally get the shot you want without having to worry abotu wasting film! That's a real plus. The day I took the photo of the bird, I'd have needed 4 rolls of film to shoot all the pics I took! Now that's a lot of film and money!

-Julie

You've seen the fotos by magpye & monterey I'm sure. Those are w/ the Fuji s5000. Its moderately priced, too! Also, has a 10x zoom. Both are easy to handle. I went with the Canon for its image stablization feature.

Thanks John. I'll keep this info in mind for when we start to shop for a new camera. :-)

-Julie