Garden October 2011 - Caterpillar

The photographs shown below were taken one bright afternoon in October. The purpose of the session was actually to get to grips with the tripod, by taking photos of the bark of the Prunus tree at a variety of settings. However when I had set up the camera I discovered this beautiful caterpillar steadily crawling up the tree. Since caterpillars and sunshine are rare at this time of year my original plan was postponed so that I could photograph the creature. I used the 300mm telephoto lens and Autofocus.

I initially tried to use a low ISO number, but this was unsuccessful as the shutter speed was so slow that the creature was totally unfocused.

I increased the ISO number which allowed the shutter speed to be increased. Since the curve of the tree was quite marked I was unwilling to reduce the aperture below 7.1, as I felt I needed the extra depth of field to ensure the tree was also focused and clear.

Unfortunately this left me with a shutter speed of 1/25 second - quite slow. I increased the ISO once more and did improve the speed to 1/60  and 1/80 second.

I kept the camera attached to the tripod to eliminate camera shake at this slow speed, but it proved a challenge to remount the camera as the caterpillar climbed the tree.

f/7.1; ISO 800; 1/25 second; focal length 300 mm

f/7.1; ISO 800; 1/25 second; focal length 300mm

f/7.1; ISO 800; 1/30 second; focal length 300 mm

f/7.1; ISO 800; 1/30 second; focal length 300 mm

f/7.1; ISO 800; 1/30 second; focal length 300 mm

f/7.1; ISO 800; 1/40 second; focal length 300 mm

f/7.1; ISO 800; 1/80 second; focal length 300 mm

I was quite pleased with these photographs, although there are several faults:

• slow shutter speed caused some blurring
• slight overexposure
• unable to plan composition as I struggled with moving caterpillar plus awkward tripod
• too wide an area of view - insufficiently focusing on the caterpillar - so the image will need to be cropped - not a good idea at ISO 800

With hindsight I should have handheld the camera to zoom as close as possible to the caterpillar. I think that because my purpose for the session was to play with the tripod this dominated my thoughts.

Unfortunately this was the last caterpillar I saw in 2011.