Getting closer
May 31, 2014 20:51:29 #
This is my second attempt. The first time I thought I had a jumper, but it was just a spider. This time I found a jumper. I'm so excited that I can see his eyes and his little hairs. I did not know that they look back at you over their shoulder. It's so amazing.
Now some questions.
I had the lens set to 1:1. How do some people get even closer than that to get more detail?
I was at f/10. If I had gone to f/16 would I have gotten the whole jumper in better focus?
How do you know you are focusing on their eyes? I just got lucky a couple of times. Some of my other shots have the sharp focus on the body, and the eyes are OOF.
I used my flash. I wanted to bounce the light so I used a white paper towel from the bathroom I was in. I placed it about 6 inches away from the jumper. Was that too close?
I was not expecting to take a shot like this today, so I didn't have my diffuser with. But the opportunity presented itself, so I made do with the paper towel.
Hand held Canon EOS 6D at ISO 100, Canon 100mm macro lens, 1/60-sec at f/10, built-in flash reflected off of white paper.
Now some questions.
I had the lens set to 1:1. How do some people get even closer than that to get more detail?
I was at f/10. If I had gone to f/16 would I have gotten the whole jumper in better focus?
How do you know you are focusing on their eyes? I just got lucky a couple of times. Some of my other shots have the sharp focus on the body, and the eyes are OOF.
I used my flash. I wanted to bounce the light so I used a white paper towel from the bathroom I was in. I placed it about 6 inches away from the jumper. Was that too close?
I was not expecting to take a shot like this today, so I didn't have my diffuser with. But the opportunity presented itself, so I made do with the paper towel.
Hand held Canon EOS 6D at ISO 100, Canon 100mm macro lens, 1/60-sec at f/10, built-in flash reflected off of white paper.
May 31, 2014 21:18:56 #
Still not a jumping spider. This looks like a juvenile Wolf spider (family Lycosidae). This spider has no neck to turn its head. It has eight eyes, most forward, some side-facing. Your image #1 shows it side/rear-facing eye. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_spider
1/60-sec is too slow for good results hand-holding a 100-mm macro lens. The guideline is that shutter duration should be less than focal length, so 1/125-sec would be longest duration suggested.
Most of us use speedlights which are powerful enough to allow use of aperture f/16 for best DoF, and best illumination.
Your lens alone will capture 1:1 only at Minimum Focusing Distance, which means manual focus, not A-F. But MFD provides the narrowest DoF, so many of us shoot a bit farther away, A-F or M-F, then crop to 1:1 proportions.
My camera is better at focusing than my own eyes, so I set my camera to smallest central spot for A-F. Often, I must take 20 photographs of a spider to get one image that I like, with eyes in focus.
1/60-sec is too slow for good results hand-holding a 100-mm macro lens. The guideline is that shutter duration should be less than focal length, so 1/125-sec would be longest duration suggested.
Most of us use speedlights which are powerful enough to allow use of aperture f/16 for best DoF, and best illumination.
Your lens alone will capture 1:1 only at Minimum Focusing Distance, which means manual focus, not A-F. But MFD provides the narrowest DoF, so many of us shoot a bit farther away, A-F or M-F, then crop to 1:1 proportions.
My camera is better at focusing than my own eyes, so I set my camera to smallest central spot for A-F. Often, I must take 20 photographs of a spider to get one image that I like, with eyes in focus.
Spider eye patterns
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