Spider Attempt 2

[gilbouk]

I was lucky enough to find another subject running across the bathroom floor last night which gave me the opportunity to try my hand at some more macro photography.

After attempting to get it to run onto a leaf, I realised that the spider was having traction trouble on it, and wouldn't go on it, never mind stay put!!

These little guys are just so fast, and it was a real struggle getting the camera set up, and in focus before it would start moving around again.

I persevered and managed to get 1 good shot, albeit it was on a piece of toilet roll.

What do you guys think, do I need to be going for a higher f stop? I didn't quite nail the focus on the eyes which was a shame, and I would have really liked to have managed a front on shot of the face, but it just wasn't to be

HSC_5099 by Gilbo B, on Flickr

 

[alfbranch]

Not to shabby

 

[GardenersHelper]

What do you guys think, do I need to be going for a higher f stop? I didn't quite nail the focus on the eyes which was a shame, and I would have really liked to have managed a front on shot of the face, but it just wasn't to be

Well done getting shot.

As to the f-stop, it is a matter of taste as to how much DoF you prefer. The DoF roughly doubles for every two stops reduction in f-stop so using f/22 would have given twice the DoF. However, as the aperture decreases the loss of sharpness from diffraction increases. Because of that most people won't go much further than f/11. Personally I use the smallest aperture I have available, but I am in a small minority on this.

If that is an uncropped image then one thing you could have done is to move away a bit so as to use less magnification and then crop to get to the framing you want. This gives you more DoF than you would get using the whole sensor for that same framing. The price is a loss of detail (no free lunch!). As with the DoF/diffraction tradeoff of different apertures, only you can decide on the best DoF/detail loss tradeoff from cropping.

It can be helpful to try a different apertures and different distance/framing/cropping for a particular subject and then compare the results. Of course you need to find a cooperative subject (I find dead ones, e.g. dead houseflies, are quite good for this purpose), or otherwise use a test scene, although I find it rather difficult to draw conclusions from artificial scenes.

 

[gilbouk]

Well done getting shot.

As to the f-stop, it is a matter of taste as to how much DoF you prefer. The DoF roughly doubles for every two stops reduction in f-stop so using f/22 would have given twice the DoF. However, as the aperture decreases the loss of sharpness from diffraction increases. Because of that most people won't go much further than f/11. Personally I use the smallest aperture I have available, but I am in a small minority on this.

If that is an uncropped image then one thing you could have done is to move away a bit so as to use less magnification and then crop to get to the framing you want. This gives you more DoF than you would get using the whole sensor for that same framing. The price is a loss of detail (no free lunch!). As with the DoF/diffraction tradeoff of different apertures, only you can decide on the best DoF/detail loss tradeoff from cropping.

It can be helpful to try a different apertures and different distance/framing/cropping for a particular subject and then compare the results. Of course you need to find a cooperative subject (I find dead ones, e.g. dead houseflies, are quite good for this purpose), or otherwise use a test scene, although I find it rather difficult to draw conclusions from artificial scenes.

Thanks for the advice on f stops and DoF. It's been a little while now since I last did some macrophotography and need to get back into it again. This spider was ever so small, so I had to shoot and crop afterwards to get it to fill the frame as you see it above. I will probably try something a little larger next time, and do as you suggest with shooting further away from the subject to get a bigger DoF. Likewise I will try higher f stops and see how I get on. Thanks again!!