The Visitor

In the last week or so, I've had four Small Tortoiseshells (Aglais urticae) inside my house. One had even found its way to my sauna (!). What ever was it going to do, have a bath??

This visitor was in my study, resting at the bottom of the window on the frame head down(ish). Compared to the usual crawling through nettle-infested shrub that I usually do, this was quite luxurious and very convenient (interesting subject in my study, that's great!). I was even able to sit on a chair and lean on the radiator, so the term 'handheld' isn't quite what it usually means. I didn't want to spend too much time on it though, as the critter seemed a little tired, so I resorted to camera flash (it really is a good idea to keep batteries always full even in storage, you know). Focusing was a bit hard because it was too dark for me to see the critter's head through the viewfinder, so I cranked up the F number and hoped for the best. ISO number is unnecessarily high, but I didn't even come to think of checking it.

In the end I showed the Visitor the door (well, window), and he got safely out like his colleagues.

Thank you for looking.

And one other thing. After reading the interesting discussion "Why don't ESS photogs post techs?" (06/28) on the forum, I thought I could include the equivalent focal length in the tech part; as Mark Stahlke pointed out, sensor size has a big effect here, and few viewers will know the crop factor of each camera model. Do you think it's useful to give the equivalent? (LR's tech data gives one extra mm, I don't know why.)

Olympus E-3
Sigma 105mm macro + 1.4 TC (296mm eqv. - wow, that's huge! didn't realise it before)
1/250 sec @ f20
ISO 640
Camera flash
Handheld (but see comments above)
Full frame

PS. The next time you come, Visitor, please point your head *directly* up or down, so that I'll have an easier time with my plane of focus. Thank you!