I FOUND THIS CRITTER...

I found this critter one recent morning in the bed of my aging and rusty garden trailer of all places.  It must have been quite a "hike" for it to meander up, down and around slanted and vertical metal surfaces, all festooned with rust.

Unless it was munching on something tasty in the rusty minerals I cannot imagine what caused it to make such a journey, especially since the trailer lives in the woods where snail habitat otherwise would be bountiful.

Obviously it is a snail of some sort.  But, it's identity eludes me.  As I usually do in such instances I shared these photos with one of my favorite bugologists and spent time in my usual research haunts hoping to attach a name to this critter.  No luck.

So, I will find comfort in the photography--rather than the biology--of the event and share that with you:

Photo Details:

The pictures were done with a Canon T3i, digital SLR camera and Canon's 100mm F/2.8 macro lens, hand-held.  There is significant difference in the hue of the images because the small one was done in the open shade of the woods where I first found the critter.

After I discovered it was going to tolerate my photographic curiosity, I moved the trailer into sunlight where the larger image was made.

The small photo was done at 1/25th second, F/2.8 and ISO 400.  Note the very shallow band of sharp focus.  That was created by all three things that limit depth of field in shots like this; being close to the subject, a longer than normal focal length lens and a wide aperture.

HINT:  In these instances I focus on the general subject area then move the camera gently fore and aft to fine tune the sharpness; a good technique when shooting hand-held, especially when the subject is still.

In sunlight, the larger photo was done with a slightly smaller aperture and I moved back somewhat from my very close camera/subject distance in the small photo.  Remember increasing your distance from the zone of sharpest focus provides greater depth of field.  At the amazing resolutions of which these cameras are capable, I could then enlarge it with Photoshop Elements without loss of image quality.

When I was done with the shoot, I coaxed the snail onto a putty knife and put it back in the shade of a moist pile of woods humus--all the while hoping I was not removing it from its favorite dining site.