Common Garden Spider - MORE attempts at macro photography (photos added)

LaFoto · Aug 9, 2008

This thread is in direct answer to doenoe's thread " Sunny_Day " and his brilliant macro photography, and is meant to demonstrate how important it is to really own a dedicated macro lens in order to get good results, whereas I can only "show off" (har-har) with my lame attempts at also shooting macro, having nothing but my Sigma 70-300mm lens with its macro extension ... or the means of the "reversed lens technique" with its more than dubious results...

This is the nearest my "macro lens" can take me to one of the many, many, many common garden spiders I can find in our garden just now:

I would normally crop that photo, of course, but am showing this all uncropped version just to show how "un-macro" that lens is (compared to doenoe's real and true macro photos!). A crop would then maybe look like this:

So far my only chance to get even nearer to my small subjects is the reversed lens technique, and I mostly use the kit lens for it. But the focal plane is minimal ... so the results again are unsatisfactory:

But this is all I have and will be all I'll have in the future, I might best get prepared to perfect myself much rather than drool over other people's possibilities, hm?

deanlewis · Aug 9, 2008

Very nice set, I love the second one, nicely composed and very sharp !!

Dean

LaFoto · Aug 10, 2008

Thanks Dean ... like I was saying, the second actually is a cropped version of the first. The lens alone would not have let me get that close and still get a full frame photo (focused)...

tpe · Aug 10, 2008

Great stuff, a female garden orb web spider. Could you try reversing a lens for macro shots of , it might be an idea as soon she will probably be a mum to a couple of hundred very small spiderlings.

tim.

Antarctican · Aug 10, 2008

Nicely done, Corinna! I love the delicate colour behind the spider, and the barely visible silvery web. I know the second pic is a crop of the first, but I like the placement of the spider better in the second one.

Battou · Aug 10, 2008

Nice set.

The last one would have benefited from tighter aperture and longer exposure. DOF a little to shallow on that one.

LaFoto · Aug 10, 2008

Aperture was preset to f16 from the previous shots, but I doubt aperture is variable once you take off the lens and turn it around (?). DOF is ALWAYS thus shallow... and gets shallower, the shorter the lens (at 18mm I must almost crawl into the things, but I need OODLES of light and have a razor thin focal plane only).

And Anty, you are right: if the first hadn't been taken to show how little "macro" my macro settings are (compared to tpe's or doenoe's true macro photos), I wouldn't ever have shown it at all, but the crop right away

.

Battou · Aug 10, 2008

LaFoto said:
Aperture was preset to f16 from the previous shots, but I doubt aperture is variable once you take off the lens and turn it around (?). DOF is ALWAYS thus shallow... and gets shallower, the shorter the lens (at 18mm I must almost crawl into the things, but I need OODLES of light and have a razor thin focal plane only).

Sorry, I keep forgetting I shoot macro with the lens on by the mount and have full apreture control up to f/64 wile others don't :blushing:.

As for wether it's available after reversal I am not sure. I know with Canons FD lenses, the Bayonet mount ones can not be set in full manual like the breech ones, I am kinda forced to believe it's the same with EF lenses, but it would take someone with more EF lens experience than I have to know for sure.

Battou · Aug 10, 2008

Battou said:
I know with Canons FD lenses, the Bayonet mount ones can not be set in full manual like the breech ones,

Actually, I take that back, they technically can but it requires the use of a soft butt cap and can not be mounted as normal in full manual like the breech ones....but any ways.

And now back to our regularly scedualed program.

niforpix · Aug 10, 2008

I love it! The first 2 shots look like the spider is just floating in the air lol

The last one (I think) is just a tad out of focus? Did you shoot handheld or with a tripod?

I have yet to take a good macro shot of a spider...

LaFoto · Aug 10, 2008

The last was handheld with the reversed lens also only just HELD in place, since I don't have a ring with the help of which I could have screwed it back on. Those reversed lens macros are very much "trial and error" photos, all of them. Things lying on a table work best, but spiders in their web? Great risk of slipping out of photos by breathing in or having my heart beat in the wrong moment...

Alex_B · Aug 10, 2008

better than most of my macros!

it is only a bit sad that the web does not really come our so well in #1 and #2. But apart from that I do like them

LaFoto · Aug 10, 2008

For the web to show I would have needed to shoot against the light like I did for this_photo the other day... Now I wanted the pattern on the back of the spider to show better and had the sun in my back.

ClarkKent · Aug 10, 2008

Nicely done LaFoto. I too am envious of those who have the dedicated macro lenses. I hope to some day own my own as well. Great stuff.

LaFoto · Aug 11, 2008

Thanks all for your comments ... often I wish I could get closer, but unless I crop off more than 50% of the original frame I don't ... But who knows? Maybe one day ... in the far future (?)

Here's two more that I found, and maybe the experts can tell me the name of that spider who is not a common garden spider and makes different "homes" (less round, less flat).

Does anyone know what this one's called?

And a friend (or the same?) of the spider in the photo above, i.e. in my first post

Here it was the shadow on the leaf that made me want to take the photo, much rather than getting the closest possible close-up of the spider alone.