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dynastesgrantii

Luna Moth Caterpillar

Aug, 2010

Views

456

Likes

+15

Awards

Featured

Superb Composition

Top Choice

Outstanding Creativity

Superior Skill

Absolute Masterpiece

Wonderful shot. Great color :)

Excellent capture!

Wow! What an excellent shot! Congratulations!

Wow, nice colors! Cool shot.

Wonderful shot! Congrats

Great shot. Love the colors. Congrats on your feature!

Great capture! Congrats on the feature!

great color and clarity! congrats on the feature!

Platinum

Beautiful Capture! Congratulations on your Feature!

PRO+

Awesome. Congratulations on your feature.

PRO+

Awesome Macro, Congratulations on your Feature photo!

Congrats! Great shot.

congrads really great macro shot

Stunning capture! Congratulations on being featured!

fantastic! Congrats!

LOVE THE COLOR

PRO+

great job!

The color is astounding! Well done.

Fantastic!

PRO+

nice macro congrats

Submitted to Photo Contests

S Curves

Behind The Lens

Location

Believe it or not, this image was taken at home in our dining room! I shot this in the good old days of film, using Fujichrome Sensia II. I used a Nikon film scanner to digitize it on an old Apple G4 computer. The image is of the American Moon Moth caterpillar, "Actias luna". It is feeding on Sweetgum, also known as Liquidamber.

Time

N/A

Lighting

I used a White-Lightning Zap 1000 studio strobe from the Paul C. Buff Company to light up this caterpillar. I like to use a powerful studio strobe so I can light up both the subject and the background. More on that below.

Equipment

I photographed this caterpillar with my Nikon F4 and 105 Micro Nikkor. The camera was placed on a Gitzo Safari tripod equipped with an Arca-Swiss B1 ball head using the camera's attached plate from Really Right Stuff. As mentioned above, I used a studio strobe from White-Lightning/Paul C. Buff Company and an umbrella. Nowadays I no longer use the umbrella but a 22 inch white beauty dish with a diffusion sock. The entire unit can be used in the field with the Paul Buff Vagabond portable battery.

Inspiration

I am actually a trained entomologist, which is just a fancy term for a bug person. I study the behavior of insects and know where and when to find them. In this particular case, I was rearing luna moth caterpillars for the express purpose of photographing them. After observing them for some time, you realize that as they are searching for food along the tree branches, that they will often move around, sometimes forming a beautiful S curve. As this caterpillar was searching for food, I actually tore off a piece of Sweetgum leaf and literally handed it to the caterpillar when it had moved it's body into a position that I wanted to photograph! It stayed in this position until it was done eating.

Editing

After scanning the slide, about the only post-processing done was using auto-contrast in Photoshop, which I think was version 5 back then!

In my camera bag

After switching to digital, I was using a Canon 5D MK3/MK2 system as well as a Nikon D800E/D800 system. I have now switched over to the Fuji X series, shooting mainly the Fuji X-T1. I have a number of the Fuji lenses, but also occasionally use a few of the Canon and Nikon lenses with the Fuji. I do like using the Canon 100 macro with the Fuji. With the 1.5 crop factor, the Canon 100 becomes a 150 macro.

Feedback

When I photograph insects, for greater depth-of-field (DOF), I normally try to shoot them at F16 or 22, and on rare occasions, F32. While this normally makes the insect look sharp, it can also give you a very unpleasant, distracting background, depending upon how close or how far the background is from your subject. Let me share a little "secret" with you. I learned many years ago from my friend Jim Zuckerman, that whenever possible, it is best to put a print of out-of-focus (OOF) foliage behind small subjects. I now have well over 200 OOF backgrounds that I keep handy for insects, reptiles, amphibians, flowers, etc. Jim also has amazing shots of hummingbirds using OOF background prints. I had mentioned above that I like to use a powerful studio strobe for my lighting, because it lights up both my subject and the OOF background print. Now, you can shoot with great DOF and still have an OOF background. Anyone with an Epson or Canon, to name a few, photo inkjet printer can easily make their own backgrounds for this purpose. Just be sure to use matte paper as you don't want any glare coming from the print.

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Luna Moth Caterpillar

Behind The Lens

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