Yesterday I traveled to my Master Gardener friend’s butterfly garden near Paola, Kansas, for some photography. Today’s post includes a few of the images I captured of a single, Monarch Butterfly caterpillar that was busy feeding on a Milkweed plant. The caterpillar was very small, maybe 3/4-inch long at best. Here are my favorites images from the morning:
I particularly enjoyed photographing this small caterpillar, mainly due to the excellent background that I shot against. In macro photography, often the background is at least as important as the subject. When you can get a wonderfully out-of-focus background, it makes for a very fun day of shooting!
Coming up … more caterpillar species from this exquisite garden!
Photographic Equipment Used:
- Canon 7D Mark II body
- Canon 180mm f/3.5 macro lens
- Bogen 3221 tripod, with ballhead
- ISO 200 (all photos)
- Aperture f/3.5 (photos #1, #3), f/8 (photo #2), and f/6.7 (photo #4)
- Shutter 1/500 sec. (top photo), 1/125 sec. (photo #2), 1/350 (photo #3) and 1/180 sec. (bottom photo)