David York's photos with the keyword: hawkmoth

Aka Macroglossum stellatarum. This was one tricky shot to get and one I had many attempts at over several time periods. We had a honeysuckle bush just outside the gite we were staying in and I kept seeing these things flying around the bush, so I was determined to get a photo of one. The problem is that they move very quicky, dont stay long at any particular flower and have very fast beating wings (beating at about 80Hz). This made it a difficult photo to get, as a reasonable depth of field was required to accomodate the fact that focusing time was very limited (i.e. not necessarily focussing on exactly the right spot), but that compromises the shutter speed which needed to be very fast to stop the wing motion (used 1/3200s), so needed to set ISO way up (hence the graininess) to allow decent DOF and fast shutter. Then had to play the game of guess which flower the moth would go to next to try and get focussed and stable and ready for the shot. After many attempts, this was the best I achieved.