Butterfly emerging from chrysalis

[StephenM]

Hi all,

I've been keeping a bit of an eye on the metallic-coloured chrysalis (a photo of which I posted last weekend), and I got lucky this morning. In between rain showers I went outside and managed to catch the butterfly emerging from the crysalis! First time I've ever seen this. It took only about 15 minutes to expand the wings to there full size, and it was amazing to watch. As soon as it emerged it started unfurling its probiscis, as if it was thinking "what's this bit for?". I saw it take its first flight as well, a couple of hours after emerging. Anyway, here are a few photos that I captured. Hope you like them!

Cheers,
Stephen

[StephenM]

...and here is a panel starting with the caterpillar, right through to the butterfly just before its maiden flight. Thanks for looking!

Cheers,
Stephen

[firstlight]

Fantastic Stephen. I've never even seen a chrystalis, let alone a butterfly or moth emerging. I'm very envious. You've got some great images as well. Doubly envious :D

[astro_south]

Wow - great timing and great images Stephen. Thanks for sharing :thumbsup:

[Liz]

Woohoo ... top shots Stephen :thumbsup::thumbsup:
I have stood by those chrysalis thingos many times, armed with camera, but never in the right place at the right time.

[Tilt]

Awesome shots Stephen! You must be happy with these images.

Michael

[ejcruz]

Now that I like, well done with great composion.

Cheers
Eddie

[StephenM]

Thanks for the comments Tony, Andrew, Liz, Michael and Eddie!
I'm glad you like the images. I was very lucky with the timing I think. The light levels were quite low due to the overcast conditions (in fact it was drizzling for much of the time), so some of the images are not as sharp as they might have been in brighter conditions, but I'm still happy to have captured the event!

Cheers,
Stephen

[cookie8]

Congretulations Stephens for capturing such a magical moment. Stunning!!

[lacad01]

Beautiful work mate! :thumbsup:

[venus]

The images are absolutely stunning. Thanks for sharing.

[Quark]

Lovely images again Stephen,

As a suggestion, it would be truly amazing if you could do this from a tripod, without moving the camera at all and then put it all together as an animation.

An animation, at this resolution, would be a stunning achievement.

Regards
Trevor

[BerrieK]

Beautiful!

What more can I say.

I enjoy your work immensely.

Thanks for sharing.

[iceman]

Wow, very cool Stephen. Great capture!

[RB]

Fantastic work Stephen !!!
Thank you for sharing such a wonderful transformation.

:thumbsup:

[Dennis]

Hi Stephen

An incredibly interesting sequence of photos revealing this beautiful process – I love these types of sequence shots!

Cheers

Dennis

PS – did you use the very handy “contact photo” routine in CS3 to produce the series composite?

[StephenM]

Thanks very much for the comments everyone!



Yes, that's a good suggestion Trevor. On this occasion there was a bit of drizzle, so I was moving the camera under cover between shots. But I'll keep it in mind for next time!



I'm using PS7 Dennis, and I'm not sure if it has this feature? It didn't take too long to assemble the panel through, because I already had prepared the 600 pixel height versions for posting here. I just copied and pasted each image onto a full resolution dark frame.

Thanks again.

Cheers,
Stephen

[Octane]

Stephen,

That is truly awesome. Well done.

Regards,
Humayun

[StephenM]

Thanks Humayun.

Cheers,
Stephen

[spacezebra]

Beautifully captured!

Cheers Petra d.

[hotspur]

thats great work,taking the time to get those shots

the common name for that butterfly is "black crow":thumbsup:

[StephenM]

Thanks Petra and Chris! Glad you like the shots.

Cheers,
Stephen

[Kevnool]

Thats awsome Stephen, i aint seen that stuff before.
Amazed.
Cheers Kev.

[prokyon]

Great work Stephen, these could be pics for a biological schoolbook :thumbsup:

cheers

werner

[StephenM]

Thanks Kev and Werner!

Cheers,
Stephen