On a cold and snowy day in January we visited the Stratford Butterfly Farm in Stratford on Avon - very excited as butterflies are one of my favourite photographic subjects. They are however also one of the trickiest to get right - they never seem to hold their wings in the correct plane to enable the correct depth of field!!
Also as it was cold outside I had concerns about cameras and lenses fogging up as soon as we went inside the flight area - a great tip here is to keep the camera and lens in a plastic bag or one of those zipped plastic folders. This reduces the effect of the temperature difference and I have to say it was a great success. Instead of waiting about 30 minutes I was able to start shooting after no more than 5 minutes without needing to clean the lens at all. Brilliant! This meant I could maximise my time in with the butterflies.
Despite being January there were a good variety of butterflies flying (along with parrots, cockatiels, quails and an iguana). At any one time there can be around 1500 butterflies from 250 species and 20 countries from around the world.
I must have spent around 3 hours in heaven taking as many images of as many butterflies as possible. My target was to get a good image of the glasswing butterfly (Greta Oto) which I think I managed.
If you like butterflies then this is a place you must go - admission is reasonable (we used tesco vouchers!) and you can spend as much time as you like
