Up close with a creepy critter

We came across this hairy beast on the boardwalk by Pickmere Lake - I'm amazed that Daisy didn't spot it and it therefore survived her passing by. The light was great - sunlight filtered by the high reeds and also bounced back up by the bleached wood of the boards. My first shot is a bit typical and although in focus and correctly exposed, it is, well, just boring!! So I decided to try another angle, which involved me lying down. The caterpillar wasn't going anywhere - frozen to the spot in fear of a strange giant - so I thought I'd play around a bit with camera settings. These shots are all taken with my compact camera - Panasonic DMC-FS12 - so no fancy lenses or kit. I set the camera to its Macro setting for a close up shot - just select the flower setting to do this. I then put the camera on the boardwalk, rather than hand holding it. This was partly to get right to eye level with my hairy model, but also because I was lying at an awkward angle and wanted to ensure I didn't get camera shake i.e. blurred picture. Then I took picture 2. This has started to look quite interesting but the point that is in focus is the middle of the caterpillar's body (where the + is).

When you select the flower / macro setting it gets your camera to start doing some quite clever things. Wherever you focus with the little square in the middle of your screen will be in focus but other areas will be out of focus - this can be a really nice effect and is called "shallow depth of field". But you really want to think about which bit of your picture is going to be in focus and which bit is blurred. In this case it would look better if the caterpillar's head were in focus. I decided to change my angle again for picture 3, looking along the length of the caterpillar and making sure I focused on its head - I actually wasn't sure which end was which so I may have focused on its bottom by accident! I still put the camera on the ground and just pressed the shutter to avoid camera shake. This is a much more interesting shot and I really love the blurry grey of the boardwalk and green of the reeds.

So next time you meet a hairy critter that is willing to model for you have a little play around with your macro / flower setting and don't be afraid to get up close and personal!