Great looking spider. May need a touch more DOF to get focus on the head. Some bright spots showing from the flash. May want to look at some diffusion or improving it if you already have it. Check out the show us your macro rig thread for ideas.
With macro, even at f/22 your DOF will be small when focussing close - maybe a couple of mm at best - making it difficult to get everything sharp without image stacking.
With macro, even at f/22 your DOF will be small when focussing close - maybe a couple of mm at best - making it difficult to get everything sharp without image stacking.
With non-stacked shots, one thing that may help is the exact placement of the centre of focus. For example, if you focus on the nearest part of the subject then you will only be using half of the available DOF, the other half being in the empty air in front of the subject, so you need to place the centre of focus further away. When you look at the scene in the viewfinder you will probably be looking at the scene at maximum aperture, and the DOF will be very narrow. With the DOF placed appropriately it will look as if the nearer parts of the subject are out of focus. It takes experimentation and practice to (a) work out where to place the centre of DOF in a particular type of shot when using a particular aperture and (b) to be able to actually get the centre of focus located there.
I typically take as many shots as I can of a subject (not bursts btw), each time trying to place the centre focus where I want it (and trying two or more different centres of focus if I'm not sure where it should best fall).
If I am working hand-held or if there is a breeze, and especially if working hand-held in a breeze I get significant variation in where the centre of focus falls, and often very few (or none) where it falls somewhere that produces an image I'm content to use. Supporting the camera in some way reduces (but does not eliminate) the variation (from hand-shake at least, although obviously not from subject movement).
For me at least, close-up and macro is a numbers game - the more images I capture the more chance I have of ending up with something I like enough to share.
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