C&C Please - Bathroom Guest

[OrionsByte]

I found a little guest in our bathroom tonight, and rather than kick it out I decided to take some pictures. I have no idea what kind of spider it is, but it was about nickel-sized.

This is the first shot I took. Took an educated guess at the camera and flash settings and got pretty darn close, which is a big win for me because it makes me feel like I'm learning. 55mm, f/8, SB-600 flash off-camera resting on the towel rack below the spider and aimed to bounce off the opposite wall at 1/4 power.



After seeing how that one turned out, I noticed that my DOF was a little shallow and I lost a little of the spider's legs at the far end. I also had a different idea for the lighting, so here's the best of the shots from attempt #2 - it was shot at 55m, f/11, with the SB-600 flash resting on the towel rack and pointed straight up at the spider along the wall, at 1/16 power. This image also got a big contrast and saturation boost in post, and technically it was shot in portrait (with the shadow going up the wall) but I thought it looked better in landscape.



What do you think? I still missed the focus on his back legs a little, so I probably should have gone a step or two farther on the aperture and brought the flash power up to compensate. Anything else?

 

[point-&-shoot]

looks like a wolf spider. good for insect control. they are poisonous but in most cases not significantly enough to be a medical concern.

 

[Jeatley]

Did you kill it after the photo shoot or did you name it and keep it as a pet!

First shot really does nothing for me. I do like the second! With a Macro lens I think that shot could be amazing. Good job!

 

[point-&-shoot]

oh and as for the photos. not bad. i like 1 better. the lighting on 2 seems to have given the spider some weird color. looks like your ready for some macro tubes.

 

[OrionsByte]

Did you kill it after the photo shoot or did you name it and keep it as a pet!

Nah, my wife doesn't let me kill spiders. She's going to "relocate" it today.

oh and as for the photos. not bad. i like 1 better. the lighting on 2 seems to have given the spider some weird color. looks like your ready for some macro tubes.

Well part of the "weird color" might be because of how much I cranked up the saturation, which I did just to make the spider stand out more and give it a kind of creepy other-worldly feel. Here's the original RAW file without any editing for comparison.