Central Florida Photo Ops

Copyright 2009, Ed Rosack - All Rights Reserved. The Florida Museum of Natural History has an excellent butterfly exhibit, called the Butterfly Rainforest. I was there once before in 2007 with my daughter Mary. The Museum is located on the University of Florida Campus in Gainesville, just off of I-75. For Orlando area residents, it's about a 2 hour drive. You should consider the weather before you go. When I went on June 20th, it was very, very hot and humid and this might be easier to put up with in the cooler times of the year. There's also quite a lot of pretty tropical and sub-tropical flowers to take photos of, which supply nectar to feed the butterflies. And there are several smaller birds that are flying free within the exhibit. I brought a single camera on a strap, a filter case in one pocket and a flash in my other pocket. Without a tripod or monopod, vibration reduction is pretty important. Since you're restricted to the paths and you can't bring a camera bag in to switch lenses, a zoom lens is a necessity. I used my 70 - 300 VR zoom on my Nikon D700 and also used a close up filter at times. This seemed to work out pretty well. Some of the butterflies will be still for you and some won't. Most don't seem to mind the people. In fact some of them will land on you! My SB-600 flash came in handy at times to fill in shadows. The light was variable. There's a lot of shadows from vegetation and the cloud cover can also make a big difference in a small amount of time. The Butterfly Rainforest has a lot of photos waiting to be made.