Earl Moore Photography
Large Caterpillar - Not on today's menu

I was shooting handheld with a long lens and a very shallow DOF so I just missed focus on this lizards head.

Still it was an interestingly enough scene/attempt to present here of this lizard eating a small green caterpillar while a large wooly caterpillar crawls by without a second glance. I only had one shot and the lizard was gone.


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Don
Don
12 years ago

I think you made a fine picture. It’s looks sharp enough with great detail and color. Your past pictures look very good too…like always. Nice work.

ken bello
12 years ago

There is a little softness on the lizard but the caterpillar looks pretty sharp. You nailed the exposure and composition and the lighting is very nice on this.
I saw a video from Russell Brown of Adobe Photoshop fame demonstrate a filter destined for a future version of Photoshop. This filter would sharpen even badly out of focus photos automatically. It worked beautifully in the demo but I don’t think this feature made it into CS 6. Still, it gives you an idea of what direction Adobe is going and what to expect in the future.

Paul Maxim
Paul Maxim
12 years ago

Just out of curiosity, Earl, what was the focal length, aperture, and exposure? It’s a good image, but you’re right about the softness. With critters, the head is all-important. You have to have the head (especially the eye) in focus or it just doesn’t work in most cases.

I tend to agree with you on the “filter” thing. Correcting something that’s out of focus is sort of like reclaiming blown highlights. There’s a limit to what can be done. Personally, I don’t think you’ll ever be “proved wrong”.

Mark
12 years ago

This is a tough situation Earl, one that has happened to me on quite a few occasions. Although I wasn’t fortunate enough to have two good subjects next to each other, it is usually something like a leaf edge that gets me. That, plus if this lizard is anything like the ones I have seen, they make a chipmunk scurry look like slow motion.

Paul
12 years ago

That large caterpillar looks to be more than a snack. I think that he might have to pass that baby up even if he was pretty hungry! The shot looks great to me! Not much you can do working at that shallow DOF and having a moving subject, or two.

Monte Stevens
12 years ago

Sometimes we need get a shot but maybe not “the shot.” The story it tells makes it work for me so the focus is not a problem for me. That may be too much of a meal for the little guy or the green worm was tastier. :-)