A Blue Morpho....you captured this as it was resting...

difficult to snap normally as they are always fluttering around!...

Nice one!

Yes it is an unusual experience Doug. I have been a few times in butterfly house. This blue morpho looks very nice. I prefer the view when the wings are closed - then it is brown with a few "eyes" on them. I suppose you have that too.

a wonderful macro of this Morpho, Doug.
Congratulations with your new macro lens, my friend.

I too have visited butterfly houses,and it's a wonderful experience. I can see the details of this Morpho, and the coloring very well.Congrats on the new lens, and I look forward to more. You have me wondering what the new lens is? tigs=^..^=

The lens is a Tokina AT-X Pro D 100mm F2.8 Macro which I used with my Nikon D7200. The reviews on the lens were interesting. I have much to learn about macro shooting and should probably employ a tripod as my shake factor when close-in on a moving subject is well...shakey.

Wowser Doug, this is Breath taking shot and butterfly - love the way the wings shimmer - right into my favs

Hello Doug, this is an incredible picture and I truly understand the difficulty in this shot, although a tripod would be beneficial in my experience also cumbersome because the subject is usually a capture of the moment, I have a Canon 100 mm 2.8 macro lens, the only advice I can convey from my experience is I use auto focus and actually while holding the shutter button down at the first level I move the camera in and out from the subject and when I see and hear the focus beep I snap the picture, and of course take several, then in lightroom I process the pictures where I can sharpen and alter the saturation, if you can be sure the subject will not move then a tripod is in order, I find myself just wandering around and it gets in my way lol
I know that there may be some apprehension in post processing photos, however I grew up in my father's darkroom and from the start of photography even the first photos were subject to the exposure time and then the developing time so there has never been a non-processed photo.

Best of luck. Paul

You did a great job, Doug, and this is a beautiful specimen...love the color...faved.

Beautiful blue morpho Doug and very good detail as well. I agree with Paul(Mitsubishiman) when I shoot macro I do use the auto focus feature which helps me get a better shot usually. I also have a tripod I manage to forget most of the time but I do use for bird shots in particular.

Although we have several butterfly homes in our park I've never come across a specimen as beautiful as this. Wonderful photography.

your struggling efforts were worth it!