What lens and camera setting do you use for butterflies?

I have an *ist DS body and want suggestions for a lens, flash and settings for the camera for shooting butterflies. I have a hot shoe flash and a Sigma 105 mm macro lens. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

It depends in part precisely what the nature is of the pic you want to take. The kit you have will be fine for getting some great shots. My technique is generally to have the camera in Av mode and set the aperture to be pretty small (i.e. a reasonably big f-number). With close-up work such as you might want to be doing in these circumstances, the depth of focus will be pretty thin (razor thin with a big aperture) and a smaller aperture will help to keep the DOF it as deep as possible. This means normally (unless the ambient light is excellent) that you will need to use the flash, as otherwise the small aperture will lead to a slow shutter speed and it will be tough to get a sharp shot - particularly hand-held. I normally try and use something from f8 upwards and often I am around f11-f16. I should add that if you particularly want to get a pic with a very narrow DOF (i.e. maybe just having the eyes in focus or something) then maybe you will need a bigger aperture... horses for course really.

For flash, I normally dial it down a bit, as using it 'full blast' close up, even with the small aperture, can lead to the highlights (or indeed everything) being blown out. I use a Pentax 540 flashgun and I usually dial it down to -0.5 or -1, and I often put on an extra diffuser (like a stofen omnibounce) as well. The onboard flash is also not bad although again I would dial it down to -0.7 or -1. I also have cheap hotshoe cable which enables me to have the flashgun off the camera altogether and that can be very helpful for controlling lighting, although generally I then need a tripod as I end up with my hands full!

Then for focussing I imagine autofocus will be fine for something the size of a butterfly. but often manual focussing can pay dividends when photographing very small things close up. I would go with whatever is most comfortable to start with, and I know some people have success using the 'catch-in focus' function on the camera with manual focussing, although I don't know if the *ist DS has that function.

Above all I would get out there and experiment and see what works best. Key points would be small aperture and dialled back flash. IMO.

Hope that helps

I like to use my DA L 55-300mm for butterfly shots due to its great colour rendition and inherent sharpness, particularly at focal lengths between 100 and 250mm. The zoom gives great flexibility and the results have been very good. I find the autofocus is usually fine for butterflies, but I occasionally shoot with manual focus. With regard to flash, I don't use it as I prefer the natural daylight on insects / butterflies. Like Mat, I normally have the aperture set at around f11; obviously this demands plenty of daylight.

Cheers
David