Critique Macro Spider

Adam Bonn

Adam Bonn

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Adam Bonn
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Hi all,

I think I'll dip my toe into the boiling hot water of critique!!!

I'm quite partial to a macro, particularly of spiders!

For a while now I seem to have plateaued out at what I can do.... I feel there is more!

Over the years I've noticed the differences of shooting with different rigs, so I can easily see the IQ differences between my old bridge cameras and the Nikon I had & the Fuji I currently own..... but...

.....I have to say that my base image quality has remained quite static...

the one below:

DSCF4587_lzn by adzman_808, on Flickr

Basic EXIF
  • F10
  • 60.0 mm
  • 1/125
  • iso1600
  • Off, did not fire
  • Manual

So firstly this guy (actually it's probably a juvenile female cross spider, but I digress) is about the size of my little finger's finger nail

It was shot hand held

The PP was done in LightZone (I don't have LR or PS etc)

I'm not desperately unhappy with the image... but I do feel it could be better (a lot better)

and by better, I mean

  • Sharper
  • Better exposed
  • Greater DOF across the spider
Now this is just a hobby to me.... but it's not my first day! Sharper might mean camera holding technique or shutter speed, better exposed might mean trying different metering modes & DOF could be achieved with a tripod, smaller aperture & a longer shutter.

Obviously garden spider shots are governed by external factors.. the breeze moves them in their webs... plants & shrubs where they reside are not the best lit places (flash Adam?) Spider shots generally seem to mean crouching down & reaching into awkward places, not conducive to firm camera holding technique!

The other limitations as well as my technique can be workflow & gear related...

My Fuji 60mm "macro" isn't a true macro (1:2)

My PP skills are weak (no really weak!!) & my workflow toolset is free stuff.

But I DON'T see the answer here to be "buy a FF, a L Glass macro and get PS full version" I want to work with what I have

Reading my exif info above (its amazing how typing a post like this helps you find your own answers!!) I think my enemy here was probably ISO (namely auto iso) as f10 & 1/125 were probably in the right ball park...?

What says you?

Thanks in advance
 
OK yes could be sharper suspect that is due to wind or camera shake try shooting at 1/200s till you get used to it. Exposure looks good to me but am on phone. And DOF looks fine to me I aim to shoot at F11 and you don't need whole thing in focus.

ISO1600 won't help with sharpness less you have a full frame camera which can handle low light.
 
It looks to me like the settings you used were probably about the best combination given the ambient light level. I wouldn't want a slower shutter speed hand held, especially as the web may have been moving around too (they usually are). I don't know what camera you are using, but going above ISO 1600 probably isn't a good idea, especially if your PP skills are weak. So f/10 would be about the best you could use.

It would imagine that to get a sharper image and/or more dof for this type of shot in that level of ambient light you would need to use flash. If your camera has on board flash you could use a home made snoot. (Search for "Velcro" on this page for example to see a snoot, used by someone who gets amazing results, as you will see, from a now quite old bridge camera and its on board flash.)

If the air is still you could use a tripod and remote release, slower shutter speeds, lower ISOs and smaller apertures. I do this when I go out to nature reserves at dawn on calm days, and I sometimes use exposures as slow as several seconds. Even when I do encounter still air, it generally doesn't last long, and I may then move to a "tripod assisted" approach where I continue using natural light (which I prefer to use), keeping my hands on the camera but using a tripod, with three, two or one leg on the ground, to damp down the hand shake movements. This lets me use exposures in the region of 1/2 second or slower, for example when photographing slugs and snails in motion. Then, as the light and temperature come up and the insects warm up and start moving around, I may switch to hand held, with flash, sometimes the on board flash (with no diffuser) and sometimes an external flash with a home made diffuser mounted on the camera hot shoe. Only if the light gets to be very bright will I work hand held with no flash, but if it is that bright you are likely to get overly strong shadows and so I tend to carry on using flash at least some of the time as fill to help with the shadows.

I tend to use very small apertures (f/22 to f/32), which exacerbates these issues, but even assuming you will be using larger apertures than this some of these techniques might be worth considering.
 
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Just to reinforce what Nick says, I agree you either need to think about stabilizing your setup more, but then your subject needs to be completely still too, and spiders on webs will move even with a slight breeze. Making use of flash will enable you to achieve greater depth of field along with increased shutter speed (and improved sharpness) and this is the approach I would recommend (although there are plenty of "natural light" macro photographers knocking around these forums that get excellent results.
 
Can't add much to the excellent advice already given
It's a great web shot the only thing that I would do different is go for a lower angle and get the spider more face on but that's just my preference
I do natural light shots but as Nick said you need still conditions to do it:)
 
Thanks everyone for some honest & clear advice.

OK... so today I tried again, might have been the same spider (I haven't compared the 2 shots to compare markings!)

I tried to take on board the advice above & went for a far more manual set up!

So lets begin with the set up!

The camera is a Fuji X-Pro1.

The lens is the XF60, not a true macro, only 1:2

I can't get under the spider to get a face shot, it's to low :(

It was a lot more breezy today & darker :(

I set the camera to the base iso (which is 200 on the Fuji)

I knew I wanted to use flash, even though it would limit my shutter speed to a theoretical 1/180**

I knew I wanted a small aperture, so I went in at F11.

and...

I could not see s**t, total blackness through the VF !!!

So I dropped down to 2.4 on the aperture ring, focused & locked focus (AF-L), then spun the lens ring back round to F11

Then praying neither me or the spider moved, I squeezed the shutter

The Fuji flash has a built in diffuser & a EV dial

After a few completely washed out pix, I decided the diffuser & some negative EV compensation would be a good idea!!

I then tried different apertures & looked how it affect the shot

The lens seemed happiest at 5.6

Obviously, couching down, looking at a black VF meant there wouldn't be many keepers!

But lets see what we got?

[** I set the shutter at 1/160, which is a soft setting but forgot (dur) that it resets to the dial setting if you go to playback, so the shot below was actually 1/125]

OK firstly, this is what I had to work with, it's a terrible shot, but that's my index finger & it's just about touching the web - gives an idea of size!


I really must do this in the autumn when they've grown a bit!!!


DSCF4933 by adzman_808, on Flickr
This is SOOC (jpeg)
I'm happy with this, not because it's great - but it's about what I ended up with last time. I really feel you've helped me get what was my end 'quality' now at the start of my workflow

DSCF4933 copy by adzman_808, on Flickr
I was going to apply the same(ish) LightZone settings, for a fair comparison, but the sharpening & tonal changes just looked bad. So I changed the light a little in PhotoEffects and left it there.

I'll try again later with LZ, but my PP skills (lack of) are probably best saved for another thread

Thanks again

EDIT: and **** using photobucket to host these pix, they've ruined them worse than flickr, I'll replace them asap Now done!
 
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Adzman808 said:
I could not see s**t, total blackness through the VF !!!
So I dropped down to 2.4 on the aperture ring, focused & locked focus (AF-L), then spun the lens ring back round to F11
Then praying neither me or the spider moved, I squeezed the shutter
Click to expand...

I'm astonished you got such a good result. Well done.

Adzman808 said:
I knew I wanted to use flash, even though it would limit my shutter speed to a theoretical 1/180**
[** I set the shutter at 1/160, which is a soft setting but forgot (dur) that it resets to the dial setting if you go to playback, so the shot below was actually 1/125]
Click to expand...

Bear in mind that if the flash is the dominant source of illumination then the effective shutter speed is the duration of the flash, which is rather fast, so with flash as the dominant light source you don't really need to be concerned about the shutter speed.

As the proportion of natural light increases the shutter speed does of course become an issue - you start to get double images, one from the flash and a less sharp one from the natural light. I quite often want to slow the shutter speed down when using flash so as to bring up the background, as I don't really like black backgrounds. I have to experiment on a case by case basis to see how slow I can go for a particular scene without compromising the sharpness of the subject too much.
 
I see great progress! You've certainly limited the movement blur and I think you have better contrast too. I'm not familiar with the camera but I would suspect the in built diffuser will be quite limited and you might want to have a think abut building your own at some point. Also, if you can find them, you might want to investigate reverse ring adapters for that lens if it doesn't have a macro function. Just some things to think about, but I like that final image. I'd be happy with it!
 
GardenersHelper said:
I'm astonished you got such a good result. Well done.



Bear in mind that if the flash is the dominant source of illumination then the effective shutter speed is the duration of the flash, which is rather fast, so with flash as the dominant light source you don't really need to be concerned about the shutter speed.

As the proportion of natural light increases the shutter speed does of course become an issue - you start to get double images, one from the flash and a less sharp one from the natural light. I quite often want to slow the shutter speed down when using flash so as to bring up the background, as I don't really like black backgrounds. I have to experiment on a case by case basis to see how slow I can go for a particular scene without compromising the sharpness of the subject too much.
Click to expand...

Thanks very much, there wasn't a huge percentage of keepers (shooting blind) but if anything it was a good exercise... Get the setting 'right' (not saying I did, I mean genreally) and the shot will follow

I had the flash set to rear curtain, which probably isn't correct for 1/125. I might also invest in a TTL cable to give me a off camera option

At this stage (with the excellent help I've received) I'm happy that I've moved up slightly from my plateu of macro, still plenty to go though, but that's what keeps it interesting
 
TimmyG said:
I see great progress! You've certainly limited the movement blur and I think you have better contrast too. I'm not familiar with the camera but I would suspect the in built diffuser will be quite limited and you might want to have a think abut building your own at some point. Also, if you can find them, you might want to investigate reverse ring adapters for that lens if it doesn't have a macro function. Just some things to think about, but I like that final image. I'd be happy with it!
Click to expand...

Thanks very much Tim, I've often thought about a reverse ring or perhaps a raynox 250

I like the idea of building my own diffuser, might have to give that a whirl... Probably its a good excuse to buy and eat a tub of icecream too ;-)
 
also, a little off topic, but Pete, that looks like a nice LC!!!
 
ChrisA said:
Great progress - am also amazed that you got that when you could not see through the viewfinder.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I'm thinking this is a rare occasion when I need to set "preview exposure when using the evf" to off
 
DoF also has a factor relating to focal plane to subject distance. So unless you need to print it at A3, getting slightly further away will improve your DoF, then just crop the extra off and only print at A4. Sounds counter-intuitive....
 
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