Monday, March 28, 2011

Crimson Rose

After a Sunday afternoon nap, I was at Botanical Garden's nursery shotting flowers with a wide angle lens. I saw a big black & red butterfly fluttering around but I did not attempt to shoot it. Butterflies are active and alert at this time of the day, no chance of catching them for a picture. But I had a wish to shoot this lovely creature ...one good shot or even a bad one would make me happy.


I was done with shooting flowers. I thought I'll try birds and switched over to zoom lens. I shot a crow. As I came close to nursery exit, my black & red friend started circling me. Something in my mind told me, it will sit close by. Yes! It landed on a plant less then 4 feet from me. That's just outside the minimum range of the lens. I caught it in my view-finder, luckily the lens was in auto-focus, click-click, I got two. As I was about to click the third time, it vanished from the frame. I waited for few minutes... no, that's it. ASHTE. I checked the pictures in the camera screen, they looked great even though I knew some portions would be blurred.

The one above is the cropped copy. Here are the original shots but reduced from '5184 pixels x 3456 pixels' to '1200 x 800'.



Notice how the wings have moved between the two shots?

Crimson Rose (Atrophaneura hector) is a large swallowtail butterfly belonging to the subgenus Pachliopta (Roses) of the Red-bodied Swallowtails (genus Atrophaneura).

Thanks to the friend who found the name of this butterfly for me.

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