Tropical butterfly exhibit, Pacific science center

The tropical butterfly exhibit at the Pacific science center is a photographers dream! Beautiful butterflies and colorful flowers in an enclosed location where you can shoot to your hearts content. Its a great place to visit in winter when Seattle weather is doing its thing....It does tend to get a little crowded, so if you can pick a weekday it will be better. Entrance to the butterfly exhibit is covered by general admission which is a $11 ticket. Parking is an additional $6 if you park at the Pacific science center garage.

Equipment: Canon 20D, Canon 24-70mm, B+W Circular polarizer

Image details: 32mm, f/8.0, 1/640sec, ISO 400

Make sure to bring your macro lenses or your extension tubes. One of the hardest things with butterfly photography is getting good focus. Its pretty hard to get all parts of the butterfly in focus at the same time. If auto focus is not working very well, switch to manual focus. Read this article to become a better butterfly photographer. One technique I have found to be useful is to pick a spot, get your focus right and wait for the butterfly to come settle on this location. It will give you better results than chasing the butterflies. Pay particular attention to the background, a contrasting background will make your image pop.

One of the first problems you will notice as you enter the exhibit is condensation. Give your lens a few minutes to acclimatize to the warmer temperature. Also carry with you a lens cloth as you might need to wipe the condensation off the lens. Also the aisle's in the butterfly exhibit are pretty narrow..so if you see a lot of kids around I would not recommend to set up your tripod- use your IS/VR lens instead.