Monarch butterfly slow motion video

Alan_W1 wrote:

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.

Agreed on the framing.  I was in too big of a hurry, and it was manual focus practice for me, instead of a more well thought out butterfly shoot, which I haven't done before.   Thanks for the comment.

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.

That would be a nice feature to have for my old eyes as well!

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 don't think so, I'll have to check.  I like the sensitivity for small insects pretty much where it is.  It is too slow for tracking birds manually, however, at least I think so right now.

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}.

I would need some additional experience with the Tamron 150-500 before I get interested in a follow focus rig.  I am pretty comfortable with the Olympus focus ring due to its very light resistance right now.

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

cheers.