Monarch butterfly slow motion video

Joe Lynch wrote:

Here is a 2-1/2 minute video I shot Friday in a friend's front yard.

This was shot at 200 fps in 1080p h.265 10 bit OMLog400, at 1/400th shutter, f/8, iso 800, in the shade except for the last 1/3. Tripod, manual focus, fixed shutter/aperture/iso/wb, no filter, no vnd, using an Olympus OM-1 and 150-400 Pro zoom lens with 1.25x engaged and 1.4x added. OMDS Log400 LUT applied in post, no other adjustments, straight out of camera.

The subject distance was 3-5 feet from the front of the lens, roughly. The most difficult task is to focus accurately before the insect moves on to another spot. I've been practicing nearly every day for the last few weeks, so I am getting better at it.

I am amazed at how much magnification I can get from this lens/camera combination. I tried using an external 7" monitor instead of the viewfinder to get a better view of the focus but there is no HDMI out signal at this frame rate, so I will continue with the evf.

I may try the Sony A1 with a Tamron 150-500 zoom but I don't think the close focus limit is anywhere near the small sensor Olympus setup. The codecs and resolution might be better, not sure yet. If not, the Olympus setup is certainly good enough for grand kid entertainment quality nature videos. And it is very portable.

Late model camera/video gear is really good for us amateurs with some time available to learn how to use it! I'm getting there. Thanks for taking a look.

It looks very nice Joe.

Interesting to see the very intricate behaviour at these types of range/magnification. Maybe some wider framing mixed-in would have been nice too {just my own preference though}, but either way, it is an interesting watch.

I have pretty much decided to switch entirely to insect video now {after 50 plus years of bird stills/video}, so am tweaking my gear-selections for that purpose.

The close focus of my 400mm telephoto is 4.5m, so both my 300mm options {50-300mm and 300mm prime} are effectively longer and more compact than my 400mm, for this type of purpose....both having a 2.5m mfd.

My only tube seems to have limited use for mfd with these lenses, so i am trying to decide whether the Nisi close-up lens maybe a worthwhile purchase....as i do have both an external {and in-camera} tc option available to help increase image size, if needed....along with my Nikkor 35-70mm ais, which has a nice close-focus feature {not macro}.

My external monitor does let me visually manual focus at 1080/120 and 180fps, as my G9 is internally converting the video to 1080/60 {or 1080/30} before it passes through the external monitor....which is a big help for my old eyes with focus magnification/peaking.

I don't know if your Olympus set-up is able to give the 150-400mm manual-focus ring a mechanical 'feel' to its rotation....via an internal setting?

I personally find manually focusing long telephotos with my Tilta Follow-Focus gadget, to be preferable to using my lenses focus rings when on a tripod, as the side-orientation of the focusing action seems to help with disengaging my old brain from telling my focusing hand to stop trying to follow the subject with that hand too.... as those functions need to be left to my other hand {which is on the pan-bar}.

So, i am almost all set-up and ready to go.

cheers.