Spider dinner as art

[Chairman Bill]

Following on from John Koener's spiders as art thread, I've been attempting to do something similar with flies & bees, and the odd spider too. These are my first forays into macro, all handheld, available light, Nikon D700 with Nikon 60mm 'micro' lens.

[Chairman Bill]

A few more ...

[Rob C]

Bill, try the D700 with an old manual 2.8/105mm Nikkor. Use a tripod with only two front legs extended and you have the advantages of a monopod with the added rigidity (sideways) of a tripod. All you need do is set it up to give a vertical plane that's accurate, and then it's just a matter of tilting backwards of forwards, and/or dropping or raising a central column. Works a treat with longer lenses, and I'd suggest that anything shorter than 105mm is too short for comfortable working.

Not bad for two cents!

Rob C

[Chairman Bill]

Thanks for that Rob. I've got an old 105mm 2.5, not the micro 2.8 though. Fine for portraits, but not sure I'd get close enough to do the bugs 'n' stuff justice 

[JohnKoerner]

First of all Bill, I am contacting my lawyer to see if the title of your thread infringes upon my own title (I'll have to get back to you on that)  

Secondly, I absolutely agree with Rob that the use of tripod and longer focal length is "where it's at" in macro photography ... and I recently made a blog post about this very thing (2 of them in fact).

Having said all that, I love the light in your photos, and the compositions in many ... but to get a little bit closer to them (without scaring them away) I agree that a longer lens is best. There are, however, certain types of critters that will sit still for your close-ups, even with a short lens, crab spiders for example. These critters tend to rely on camoflage and so "hold still" for as many shots as you'd like, whereas other types of spiders and such will flee upon your close approach.

Therefore, to maximize the closeness you can get to your subjects, learn which ones rely more on camoflage and you will be able to get closer to them and will enjoy more detailed shots of them as you do, if you don't have a long lens.

Cheers!

Jack


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[Eric Myrvaagnes]

I'll leave the macro stuff to you and Jack, thank you, Bill.

These are all very nice, IMHO, but the Marmalade Fly is the one that really turns me on: The focus fall-off really gives a sense of it zooming in on the flower at high speed. Nice capture.

Eric

[JohnKoerner]

Interesting, Bill, is your last two images suffer from exactly the opposite problems from each other, namely: 1) the fly on the pink flower is under-exposed ... while 2) the crab spider on the leaf is over-exposed.

In such cases, switching to spot metering over evaluative metering can provide a solution, or even taking and stacking two photos. In other words, for the fly photo, take a properly-exposed photo of the flower (leaving a dark fly) ... and then take a properly-exposed photo of the fly (leaving an over-exposed flower) ... and then STACK the images putting the properly-exposed fly on the properly-exposed flower. The reverse process would be done for the blown crab spider.

It is exceptionally-difficult to capture all-white spiders and such, against darker backgrounds (even yellow is darker than white) and retain the full detail of the white subject. And it is likewise difficult to capture dark subjects against lighter backgrounds, without either under-exposing the subject or over-exposing the background.

Applying graduated filters in Lightroom 3 are another way to work with this, as well as the dodge tool.

Jack


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[Rob C]

Thanks for that Rob. I've got an old 105mm 2.5, not the micro 2.8 though. Fine for portraits, but not sure I'd get close enough to do the bugs 'n' stuff justice 

Sorry - my slip; it is a micro 105mm that I have. I never liked 105mm for headshots - they always struck me as nicer, more natural with a 135mm. Even with the 135mm, filling a frame at around 5' feels a little too close for my tastes, apart from being at the limits of what the lens can do...

Rob C

[shutterpup]

Really like the marmelade fly best

[Justan]

....the Marmalade Fly is the one that really turns me on: The focus fall-off really gives a sense of it zooming in on the flower at high speed. Nice capture.

What he said - Beautiful capture!