Spider Macro

[FlyingSquirrel]

Here's a 'non traditional' spider pic, in the sense that it's not in a web, nor even right-side-up. C&C welcome.


Canon 30D, Sigma 150mm Macro, 1/60s @f/3.5, ISO 100. Focus stacked (combined exposure with head in focus, with body in focus). Heavily cropped.

[Sahil]

Hi Matt,

A nice capture.
I haven't ever tried my hands on Macro Photography (as I don't have suitable gears ) so please excuse me if you find my comment ignorant & baseless.

I feel that this image lack focus, as in focus on the main subject, which I assume is the Spider. I suggest a tighter crop of the image.
Also, the branch/spray the spider is hanging on is quite bright (or is it my laptop's screen), thereby distracting from the Spider. You can probably try burn tool on the same to make it li'l less bright.
Also, try giving it a li'l S curve to make the colours 'pop' out.

I am sorry if my comments are harsh.. But just my 2 cents.

[Geoff F]

If you look at this photo at full screen size, Sahil, it makes a lot more sense. Particularly if you try to look at it from a different angle so the spider 'moves' to an angle where it appears more 'natural'.

Cropping is a matter of taste. I tend to regard insect/spider photos as being portraits so I do crop tighter; as I would with a photo of a person. But some people prefer to work closer to the 'rule of thirds' as with landscapes. This shot is arranged in that way.

Brightness seems OK to me and my monitor is poor on highlights. But I'm finding a strange effect here. When viewed from certain angles, chiefly looking at a downward angle the top of that stalk does look a lot brighter than when viewed squarely.

Focus and exposure seem fine to me.

Not sure of the model's name, but if this was taken in the UK I would be thinking about Araneus diadematus.

[almanzam]

Did you get a model release signed? It's the talk of the forum, you know?

I kid!

Great shot. I don't really know too much about colors, levels, burning, cropping, only focusing.

Steady hand?

[Bobobird]

Well done stack.

[jeeperman]

Well done, Matt.

[rawill]

Well I quite like this photo.

Macro is challenging, but it does give us the chance to enter a new kind of world.

But I like to try to present my photos as 'taken' but that is nnot always possible I know,
and cropping can make a major difference.

[FlyingSquirrel]

Thank you all for your comments, suggestions, etc. I greatly value all input, as I am constantly looking to improve my work.

Sahil, your comments are most certainly not harsh; I appreciate your opinions. It had briefly crossed my mind that the grass spray may have detracted from the spider's impact, and that I should possibly blur the left and right of it a little, but at the same time I liked the way the spray's color and spiny sharpness mirrored that of the spider's spines and color tones. I like the overall muted tones in the photo and didn't want the colors to be vibrant. As it is, the photo is very representative of how I saw the scene in real life.

Geoff, you are spot-on about my compositional approach. You are correct with the ID as well, A. diadematus.

Miguel, I asked the spider to sign the model release but he was grumpy, haha! I used a tripod for this shot.

Bobo, Paul, thanks for your comments! This was the first focus stack I've ever tried. I had photoshop do most of the hard part, then I manually cleaned up the masks a little bit. It looked ok to me, but the subject is so complex I was hoping I didn't overlook some detail or strange overlap. :O

Robin, I agree; I would always prefer to present the shot as taken (at least in terms of composition), but living subjects don't always behave, so I take 'safety shots' from a distance first, before moving in for the 'kill shot' in a manner of speaking. Getting a nice close shot that fills the frame without cropping would be ideal also for the fact that a print could be made, whereas with this hard of a crop, a print would be questionable.

Thanks again to everyone. I'll be posting more pics on this forum, hoping for more great feedback so I can get new perspectives and ideas.

PS here is the photo as shot (you can see how severely the original posted shot is cropped!)