Larva of Scarlet Tiger Callimorpha dominula

e6filmusere6filmuser Registered Users Posts: 3,379 Major grins
edited December 8, 2015 in Holy Macro
My wife asked me if I had removed a caterpillar from her Streptocarpus plant. I said that I didn't know it was there. The next day I spotted it myself and took quite a few pictures.

It was on one of the lower leaves and the many, large, strap-shaped leaves made framing and lighting the larva difficult. Up to triple flash was used and, at times, fill flash on either side or both sides was switched off, to avoid green light from obstructing leaves featuring.

EM-1 (Manual Mode 1/250 second ISO 400), extension, Printing Nikkor 150mm, FOV 17mm wide, f11, hand-held. (I had to take a short rest after each shot, due to the weight).
With the reared-up larva I had only time for one shot of each.

There is a cross-eye stereo which could be more effective but the frames were not shot for this purpose.

All images have been cropped. The larva was ca 15mm long.

The larva was released onto a bramble leaf.

Harold


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Comments

  • StumblebumStumblebum Registered Users Posts: 8,480 Major grins
    edited December 7, 2015
    Nice critter.....
    Light is bit harsh in all....
    Cheers!
  • Lord VetinariLord Vetinari Registered Users Posts: 15,901 Major grins
    edited December 8, 2015
    Good ones Harold - not an easy subject
    Brian v.
  • e6filmusere6filmuser Registered Users Posts: 3,379 Major grins
    edited December 8, 2015
    Stumblebum wrote: »
    Nice critter.....
    Light is bit harsh in all....
    Cheers!

    True, but a large diffuser would have given green light. Compromise.

    Harold
  • e6filmusere6filmuser Registered Users Posts: 3,379 Major grins
    edited December 8, 2015
    Good ones Harold - not an easy subject
    Brian v.

    Thanks, Brian.

    I find it hard to believe that these are the usable ones from about 100 shots. I should have used the Kiron and f16.

    The grey underside tends to look over-processed and I went backwards and forwards with these to get it realistic while showing shadow detail.

    Harold
  • e6filmusere6filmuser Registered Users Posts: 3,379 Major grins
    edited December 8, 2015
    This one was about one third of its final length. My estimate is that it is a second instar. My book says that they hibernate when "fairly small".

    Harold
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