The other night I attended a firefly walk and got to see synchronous fireflies for the first time. It was a spectacular show in the forest.
Photographing them was a challenge since the forest was so dark and I couldn’t turn on a flash light to focus. I have another shot that I really like but I missed focus by a little bit and it really bothers me. It was a great learning experience and I’m excited to try again next year with a better understanding of what I need to do better.
The first thing I’d change is my lens selection. I was using a 50mm f/1.4 that I recently got but its got too much spherical and comatic aberration to make it a good night photography lens.
I’d also make a little glow-in-the-dark tag I could place in frame to focus on since I don’t want to disturb the fireflies with a flashlight.
A popular way to photograph fireflies is to take an exposure just after dusk and the stack other firefly exposures on top of that. This is definitely a good idea but would limit the amount of shots you could get in a night and you’d better hope you’ve got fireflies in frame. I guess you could do this with multiple tripods instead and leave those locked in place. Anyway, I’m rambling now…
