Caterpillar

I did three sessions at the grove today and had a great time, even captured two different types of lizard. I ended up with twenty five shots to choose from. You probably would have chosen different, but I really wanted to show you this caterpillar, so the lizards go in the reject file, which is getting rather bulky this month with already 167 files.

I had a real fascination for butterflies as a boy and always had a few jars of caterpillars around my bedroom, I guess I still haven't grown up. This thing was really tedious to photograph because it just would not stay still. The blip was taken in situ, where I found it. I then snapped off the stem that it was feeding on and laid it on a banana leaf, for better light and to save my back. The light breeze kept the banana leaf swaying so that plan didn't work, it didn't look natural anyway.

It was the end of the session so I decided to take it back to the house and try some more controlled shots with the tripod. I shot a bunch of test shots with different settings and went to the lab to process them and decide the best method. I returned to the studio for the proper shoot only to discover that the caterpillar was gone. I foolishly expected it to stay on the plant, I guess it got homesick. Still, in a couple of months I will find out which butterfly it came from, that's if the resident lizards don't make a meal of it.

After yesterday's heavy rainfall photo shoot, the first half of which was shot in macro mode, because I forgot to switch, DUH!, I then forgot to change back to macro for this mornings session, double DUH! Even with the whole of the first session shot in normal mode, the images came out really well. I shot the second session in macro and had a lot of focus issues, so I shot the third session in normal and the photos were great. I won't be using the macro setting any more that is for sure.

Right then, back to the caterpillar hunt for me.

Update - found it. Followed the trail of crap.

Doleschallia bisaltide - autumn leaf caterpillar. I have photographed this butterfly, but it has not mad blip.

Dave