Butterflies - Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden

A friend of ours, Anne, recently shared a few photos she shot while visiting a butterfly conservatory in Massachusetts a few days ago. If you've ever tried shooting butterflies you know how difficult it can be to get some nice shots of them! Anne shared a really nice album and it prompted me to go digging for some photos I shot in the butterfly house at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden when we visited in 2009.

These feathery, lightweight day-flying insects are difficult to follow in flight which makes it exceptionally difficult to capture a nice photo of them while in flight. To be honest, I don't know if I have ever managed to capture a decent photo of any butterfly while in flight! If I ever do, I am sure it would be completely by sheer luck... and I'm not really the luckiest guy in the world so accomplishing this is highly unlikely. I have, however, managed to capture a few nice shots of butterflies perched on plants while bathing in the sun (not me...  the butterflies!).

So, after being inspired by Anne this week, here are the only decent photos of butterflies in my collection. Perhaps we will have to add another zoo to our list of places to visit... I certainly wouldn't mind spending a day photographing animals. Thanks for the inspiration, Anne!

After digging out these photos, I just might need to have these images printed on some high quality, large format paper.

Note:  These photos were shot with my old Fuji S100FS bridge camera... a fixed lens dSLR-type of camera with a nice CCD sensor and a sharp, powerful zoom lens.  This camera is now on loan to Adam for use in his photography class. This camera has always been one of my favorites and an amazing tool producing beautiful colors and tones.