Around our home in Yukon, Oklahoma we had a lot of Monarch butterflies. I would take the opportunity to photograph them from time to time. I noticed a very small Monarch caterpillar one day and photographed it from the time it was less than 1/4 inch long. Every day or so I would go look for it out on the vines growing on our chain link fence.
The caterpillar grew rapidly until it reached the size you see here. I continued to check on its progress.
One morning I couldn’t find it on the vines on our chain link fence. I continued to search until I found it in a bush next to the fence. It was beginning to curl up to form a chrysalis.
The next day it was a chrysalis. I cut the branch with the chrysalis and took it inside and put the end of the branch in a glass of water. I came home one day to find the newly emerged Monarch butterfly.
The top and bottom pictures were taken with the lens alone. The middle two photos were taken with the Nikon 6T filter. If you have a telephoto zoom lens already, adding a Nikon 6T closeup filter is a very good way to increase your closeup range.
The Nikon 6T comes in a 62 mm filter size. If you lens takes a smaller size filter, you will need to get a step-up ring to mount the filter on your lens. My Canon lens takes a 58mm filter, so I use a 58-62 step-up ring when I use the 6T.
Added April 23, 2000
