Furry Spiders

[dod]

Just what it says, trying to get a natural habitat look

 

[Steve]

Great pictures..when you say "trying to get the natural habitat look" I take it that these are your pets then and not actually in the wild :nut:

People are strange

 

[dod]

hehe, what I meant was showing a bit more of their natural environment rather than just going for sheer close up.

 

[jewel]

Geewiz that's just nasty! Creepy little things man. Very good shots though Dod! The first one is a "cracker" as you say over there,lol Very nice.

Jewel

 

[CT]

First class work Doddy. :icon_cool You're really milking the capability of that macro lens now!

They look a bit noisy. I've been using Noiseware, a freebie which you can use as a PS plug in or a stand alone version. I'm pretty impressed with it.

 

[GfK]

Ew. Spiders. Hate the damn things.

Gimme a rolled up newspaper and I'll bash 'em good. :nunu:

Nice pics, shame about the subject.

 

[dod]

Thanks folks

First class work Doddy. :icon_cool You're really milking the capability of that macro lens now!

They look a bit noisy. I've been using Noiseware, a freebie which you can use as a PS plug in or a stand alone version. I'm pretty impressed with it.

yeah, there is a little bit of noise, had to force up the exposure in processing. I do use noiseware, just didn't on these Can't make it work as a plug in though, that was another couple of hours wasted one night onders:

Edit: started to annoy me, ran them through Noiseware

 

[KenCo]

Evil looking thing with the hellraiser costume on.....hate spiders! But as long as it's only on the screen, all excellent captures mate.

 

[dod]

Thanks Ken, not really that keen on them myself, but close up they're just fascinating, so much variation between the species. There's been a huge (relatively speaking) yellow/cream coloured one hiding between two bits of wood on a door frame outside for the last couple of weeks. Made it my mission to get a shot of it but it's a bit nervous

 

[kamion]

Nice work! Always been fascinated by spiders.

I'm a newbie, and have a question regarding the focus of the pictures. It seems like you focus on the "head" of the spider, and the body and some of the legs that are further away or nearer are out of focus. Is it possible to increase the "depth" (if that's what it's called) to get the whole spider in focus?

 

[dod]

Hi kamion

I prefer the focus to be on the eyes as in my opinion that's the most interesting bit, round the head and mouth.

Getting depth of field in macro stuff is difficult. You're working at close distances and depth of field is measured in millimetres. You need to stop the lens down to a minimum of F10 to get a workable depth of field and that introduces the problem of getting enough light into the camera to get a decent shutter speed. To get round that people generally use a separate flash unit.

Unfortunately with the set up I have it tends to mean you're too close to really get good light coverage so I can't get enough light into the picture to go for the really small apertures eg F16 and smaller. I need a lens like CT's or an off camera bracket

 

[CT]

Nice work! Always been fascinated by spiders.

I'm a newbie, and have a question regarding the focus of the pictures. It seems like you focus on the "head" of the spider, and the body and some of the legs that are further away or nearer are out of focus. Is it possible to increase the "depth" (if that's what it's called) to get the whole spider in focus?

Depth of field . Macro photogrpahy which is what this extreme close up photography is called, is very demanding, and the closer you get to your subject the less the DOF is - only extending for a millimtre or less in some cases. The only thing you can really do to increase DOF is use a smaller aperture, but even that doesn't make a significant difference when you're working that close, so as you've already noticed, we tend to focus on the head and eyes usually, as being the most important part to have in focus.

 

[CT]

Hi kamion
I need a lens like CT's

I sometimes wonder about that to be honest. It's a corking lens, but the focal length introduces real hand holding problems. You can lose the subject in the vewfinder dead easy with the slightest movement.

 

[kamion]

Wow. Thanks for the explanations guys.