Saw My First Wild Monarch Today!!

[Gwynne]

I know the other page is for reporting sightings, but this sort of ties in with my story about finding the caterpillars. I took a vacation day today and decided to check the milkweed patch. I dont usually get to check it during the day. I checked the four near me. Everytime I thought I might have found an egg, it would get up and walk away! I saw a lot of insects, some I could name and some I have no idea about. No sign of any caterpillars. I was just walking back to the house when I saw a monarch fly over and start sipping nectar from one of the little patches of milkweed. I was hoping that would mean more eggs and more caterpillars, but on closer inspection, I saw that he would be unable to deposit any eggs! Of course I didnt have my camera as I dont take it caterpillar hunting. I went back to the house to get it and the butterfly was still there. I took about 50 shots and I have to say, I thought I was getting used to the camera. It is my first digital. The shots I took of the chrysalises and newly emerged butterflies were beautiful. But taking pictures of a captive audience is a bit different than taking pictures of a butterfly that is flitting around. I have a 3X zoom. It is a canon powershot SD400. I have always loved photography, but being my first digital camera, I didnt want to spend hundreds of dollars if I didnt like using it. Some of the pictures are okay, I guess, but nothing like Donna's pictures! Still, I was excited to see the butterfly, even if he wont be laying any eggs.

[dzyg]

How fun Gwynne! Good luck finding more eggs or cats, it can be addicting can't it?? My first digital had a 4x zoom, the camera I have now is my second digital with the 12x zoom. My next camera will probably either be the more expensive 8x zoom ones or go even better and get a DSLR. The problem with the DSLR's is changing lenses plus the price of the camera and lenses is more but the pic quality is superb. The super zoom cameras are nice but they lack the overall picture quality of say the higher priced 8x zoom cameras. That is just my take on digitals anyway. LOL! I have used several different kinds, Sony, Minolta, HP and Canon.

Donna

[John Beaulieu]

Monarchs are now in full swing here in central Ontario. We have about 70 at various stages from eggs to chrysalis. I find about a half dozen eggs everyday now on the various milkweeds in the garden. The 30+ large caterpillars are munching up a lot of milkweed! I must go to a nearby milkweed patch to gather greens every day. Of course while there, I find a few more caterpillars.



This has kept me very busy, as Brenda is in Mexico. She is on a fact-finding mission with three other Monarch Teacher Network volunteers, who hope to meet with Mexican teachers and get more involvement at that end. They would like to do workshops like we do here in Ontario. Manitoba, NJ, OH and CT. Mexican teachers could learn more about this end of the migration and Canadian or American teachers could visit the butterfly sanctuaries. A March break workshop would allow viewing of the wintering monarchs!

In regards to cameras, I'm still using 30 year-old Pentax and Canon SLRs. I simply get a CD when my film is developed. A little patience saves a lot of money considering the cost of similar digital SLRs and their lenses. I would bet my old cameras will still be working after may digitals have beome obsolete. Unless of course, they stop making film!

John

[Gwynne]

Thanks for sharing that picture. I have a canon SLR myself, a T-50 that I bought a huge zoom lens for. I was thinking today that I might have been better off using that than the digital, but I had forgotten you could get CDs with film developement. I guess I have gotten spoiled by the small size off my digital and the fact that you can view the picture. I know I didnt like it that much at first, but it grew on me. All the different cameras seems to have their uses and I got tired of dragging around a huge bag.

Glad you are seeing so many butterflies and caterpillars. It may be because I am not out much during the day hours, but I am not seeing any! Well, except for the one today.

[dzyg]

Cool shot John! Sounds like you are keeping busy busy now. How cool on the work being done with the Mexican teachers. That would be awesome to see the overwintering Monarchs in Mexico!

Cameras, we had first a manual Minolta SLR then moved to an auto Minolta SLR. When I went to digital it took me a year to not bring the film camera with me every time and take pics with that too. However during that year I realized that the digital pics were increasing better than the film. Plus if something was off in a pic, like brightness, color, etc I could go to my photo program and adjust it. However you do need to find the right place to process your digital prints. I only use Kodak Easy Share Gallery- online (used to be Ofoto) in a pinch I will use Walgreens here in town but only if I have to have a pic right away as they are not nearly as nice as Kodaks. I love the fact that I can take a pic and not worry about where everything is in the picture or if I zoomed in enough cause I can crop it down later to where I want it. Also if there is something annoying in a picture, like a piece of hair over someones face, you can clone it out in a photo program. I also like goofing around with selective coloring, where you turn a pic black and white except for one small thing that you leave color. Plus the fact I can take picture after picture and not worry if I am wasting film. With the butterfly photos I took in my beautiful capture post I took 17 pictures, 5 of which I really liked, the others were either very similar or I didn't like the wing position. Had that been film I would of wasted 12 pictures. I can go out and shoot 100 pics in one sitting with no problem, I do it all the time. LOL! So for me digital is the only way now. I still really like my film cameras but rarely use them. They were a little more versatile than the digital but once you get to know how to use the digital you won't go back to film. Just my opinion. LOL!

Donna

[Gwynne]

Donna, I have been using CVS to get my pictures developed. I finally got the hang of their machine and you can put borders on the pictures too. I have not had luck with editing online. When you say you go to your photo program to adjust brightness and color, are you talking about Kodak Easy Share Gallery or a separate program? I would really like to know because while I am pleased with the overall quality of the CVS pictures, and they use kodak paper, I have had no success editing brightness and color either online or in the store. I think it is always good to explore all the options, too. Oh, yeah it also took me several months as well not to bring all my cameras with me, but I do think on Friday, with the butterfly, I would have done better with my zoom lens.

[dzyg]

Gwynne, I use Paint Sjop Pro 8 to edit any pics that need something done with them. Most of the time I don't do any editing but once in awhile I need to. I have done portraits that I have needed to touch up too. I do all my cropping in a Kodak Easy Share download called OfotoNow. I crop each pic to the size I want to make it, be it 4x6,5x7 or 8x10, that way I can decide where it is cropped not the photo place. I have used the machine at both Walgreens and Walmart, when in a pinch but when you see the difference in comparing it to the ones Kodak Easy Share Gallery does there is no comparison and no doubt where I want to get mine processed. I find with Walgreens or Walmart things are not as sharp and a little darker than they should be, colors aren't as true either. I have also tried TruPrint, Dot Photo, Shutterfly etc but again, Kodak Easy Share just does a better job. I am very very picky with my processing.

Donna

[Pat]

Gwynne, I use a (relatively) old Fuji Finepix 4900 with a macro closeup add-on lens I found on eBay. For editing, I like PhotoShop. I love digital. All those photos that don't turn out quite right don't cost me a dime for processing and for each shot I like, I sure do take a lot of less-than-wonderful ones! Pat

[Gwynne]

Pat, that picture is beautiful! What type of butterfly is that? Some time of swallowtail? I had only seen one butterfly this year, a monarch, then today I saw two yellow swallowtails!

I have been having trouble editing online but will have to practice some more to get it right. For every nice picture I take, there must be like 10 not so nice ones, so it is nice not having to pay for them all, like you said!