My name is Tim Norriss. With my partner Lynn Fomison and our good friend Una Fenton we first went to Cuba in February 2014 on a wildlife trip especially to see the birds and butterflies. Both Cuban Tody and the Bee Hummingbird, the smallest bird in the world, had long been on my list of things that I would love to see if ever I got the chance. With retirement in January 2014 came the opportunity!
It was only after we got back from that first trip and I saw that I had managed to get some half-decent pictures of the butterflies that we had seen, and subsequent conversations with two English naturalist-photographers who had both spent some time in Cuba and said they had many butterfly photographs taken there that they could contribute, that the idea came to start a website dedicated to the butterflies of the island.
We live in Hampshire, England, a long-haul flight from the Caribbean and so the next opportunity for a trip did not come until December 2014, and it was not until February 2015, just before our third trip that I found the time to make a start on the website. It is not just a wonderful learning experience for us – and it certainly is that as we try to understand their life cycles and learn the foodplants too – but also trying to improve my photographic skills as well. This can be quite a challenge for species that never seem to settle! And even when they do stop to nectar at a flower for a second or two they don’t stop fluttering their wings.
I use a combination of an old Canon body (upgraded to a Canon 7D in October 2015) with a Canon 70-200m f2.8 IS AF lens, that enables me take rapid shots from a distance sometimes with a high shutter speed, and a Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ40 compact camera for anything that will let me get close. The TZ40 is much better than the later models that have superceded it and I wouldn't recommend the later ones for this purpose. It has an excellent super-macro facility and, especially in good light, takes superb pictures. All shots are taken hand-held as I don’t carry a tripod. The Canon also gives me the opportunity of trying my hand at bird photography if an opportunity arises. Scenic shots and flowers are taken with the Panasonic.
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It was only after we got back from that first trip and I saw that I had managed to get some half-decent pictures of the butterflies that we had seen, and subsequent conversations with two English naturalist-photographers who had both spent some time in Cuba and said they had many butterfly photographs taken there that they could contribute, that the idea came to start a website dedicated to the butterflies of the island.
We live in Hampshire, England, a long-haul flight from the Caribbean and so the next opportunity for a trip did not come until December 2014, and it was not until February 2015, just before our third trip that I found the time to make a start on the website. It is not just a wonderful learning experience for us – and it certainly is that as we try to understand their life cycles and learn the foodplants too – but also trying to improve my photographic skills as well. This can be quite a challenge for species that never seem to settle! And even when they do stop to nectar at a flower for a second or two they don’t stop fluttering their wings.
I use a combination of an old Canon body (upgraded to a Canon 7D in October 2015) with a Canon 70-200m f2.8 IS AF lens, that enables me take rapid shots from a distance sometimes with a high shutter speed, and a Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ40 compact camera for anything that will let me get close. The TZ40 is much better than the later models that have superceded it and I wouldn't recommend the later ones for this purpose. It has an excellent super-macro facility and, especially in good light, takes superb pictures. All shots are taken hand-held as I don’t carry a tripod. The Canon also gives me the opportunity of trying my hand at bird photography if an opportunity arises. Scenic shots and flowers are taken with the Panasonic.
Privacy Policy
This site uses cookies – small text files that are placed on your machine to help the site provide a better user experience. In general, cookies are used to retain user preferences, store information for things like shopping baskets, and provide anonymised tracking data to third party applications like Google Analytics. As a rule, cookies will make your browsing experience better. However, you may prefer to disable cookies on this site and on others. The most effective way to do this is to disable cookies in your browser.