Butterfly at a distance

The 200-600mm G lens is normally used for taking photographs at a distance - sports, birds in flight - but it can be used for smaller subjects, such as butterflies. There are limits, because this lens does not have the super-short minimum focus distance that you get from a macro lens, but even with a 2.4m minimum focus distance, we can get a big shot of a butterfly.

The brightly coloured butterfly in this shot is Ornithoptera priamus (common green birdwing), which is not a small butterfly, but even a big butterfly is not a big subject.

This was shot with the Sony 200-600mm G at 600mm, f/6.3 (wide open at that focal length), 1/1000, ISO 12800 on the Sony A1. No noise reduction despite the high ISO. Only a small crop horizontally (from 8640 to 8230 pixels) - you are seeing the full height of the frame.

Butterflies are a difficult subject for noise reduction software, because their wings are covered in scales, which must look like colour noise to the poor noise reduction software! Given how sharp the focal plane came out, I felt no noise reduction was desirable.