Moth Caterpillars Hatching

[BillTyler]

A week or so before these caterpillars hatched, I came across their mother, clinging to the wall of my stairwell, and laying a carpet of tiny eggs. I was fortunate enough to be there when the caterpillars began to hatch. In addition to the caterpillars, you can see eggs, both hatched and unhatched. The dark colored eggs have not yet hatched. The almost invisible translucent white eggs are empty. I did not measure, but the eggs appeared to be somewhere between one and two millimeters in diameter. Photographed with Nikon Coolpix 990, auto exposure, manual focus, lit by a skylight over the stairwell.

[Kaushik Balakumar]

Very difficult to compose these sort of scenes. But this is a wonderful moment you have captured Bill.

[Julie Kenward]

I agree with Kaushik. This could so easily be just a mishmash of caterpillars but there is enough depth and enough light that it has a really interesting angle to it. Since we don't have an aperture, can you tell me how close you actually had the camera to the caterpillars? And was this a full frame image or did you do a crop?

[Mike Moats]

Hey Bill, very interesting shot. nice details, and I would suggest a crop on the top as the light in the upper left corner is darker than the lighting through out the rest of the image and the crop would keep the lighting consistent.

[BillTyler]

Thanks for the comments. To answer a few questions- this is a crop. The camera was within a very few inches of the caterpillars - maybe two or three inches. The entire image covers maybe an inch vertically. The eggs in real life were about the size of a pinhead. Rather than crop, I've tried lightening the upper corners. I'd be grateful to know whether this fixes the problem of bad light that Mike commented on. The image metadata tells me that the lens was at f/3.4, shutter speed 1/17, at ISO 100.

Bill

[Mike Moats]

Hey Bill, the lighting looks much more even through out. Very good.