few summers ago. Photographing it was a challenging because it was constantly in motion, and to capture this kind of depth of field in which al of the urticating hairs (meaning they sting) were sharp, I needed f/32 for maximum depth of field. However, that reduced the light too much for a fast shutter at a reasonable ISO. So, I used a ring flash which simulates diffused light. The problem with that, however, was light falloff. In order to have an attractively out of focus background of green foliage, which looks more natural than a black background, I printed a 13 x 19 inch print of out of focus foliage and mounted it on foam core. By adjusting the distance from the caterpillar to the print, I could control the exposure on the background. My shutter speed was 1/250 which synchronized with the flash.
0 Comments