Swallowtail Caterpillars At Davidsons Mill Pond Park

During our photo walk at Davidsons Mill Pond Park I noticed a few Swallowtail Caterpillars in the Milkweed Fields. Both images are 3 image focus stacks taken taken @ f/8, for a smoother background. When I am shooting Focus stacks with a m43 camera & the lens @140mm, I tend to use an aperture of f/8. This way I get a little more depth of field and a somewhat smoother background. I only have to shoot 3 images for the stack on a subject that is also moving. So my main subject in the image lines up better in the 3 stacked images. If I used more images because it is slowly moving the main subject would not line up with the backgrounds.

3 image Focus Stack, 14- 140mm lens @ 140 mm, f/8

Caterpillars

I found this caterpillar nest in a tree in my front yard. I have been watching it, waiting for them to come out to see what happens. I shot a series when I got home from work. It was getting dark so I tried some fill flash to brighten them up a little. Shooting close up with a 300mm lens gives an almost abstract pattern to the closeups. I also shot a few 2 shot vertical panoramas which I assembled in Photoshop.

Caterpillars v4 2sht pano

caterpillars v5

caterpillar v2_MG_4299

caterpillars v1_MG_4296 v1