One of the things that makes the first shot so much better is the graduated background in the first shot--the transition from lighter to progressively darker background tonal value, all in the gray-to-black family, makes the first photo's background very good behind a white-colored spider's web. I think the photo could use a bit more sharpening though--it looks like it's a tiny smidge either OOF or motion blurred, which is pretty common at this high of a magnification. I'm not much of a spider guy....does the wolf spider have eyes like that ???