Spider

[BillTyler]

This spider lives between the first-floor deck and the second-floor deck behind my house. It only comes out at night. Shortly after dark, it is hard at work repairing damage to its web. The spider is fairly large - over 3 inches with legs outstretched. I like the hair and the red highlights on the legs. It would have been good to get the silk glands and the tip of the spider's left hind leg in better focus, but DOF is hard to do, especially when working in the dark. I have video of this spider at work at http://wtyler.smugmug.com/gallery/8872201_RFDeP/1/588140973_ehCtq . If you watch the video, note how the spider pulls the silk out of its glands with a "leg over leg" motion. In this photo, it's in the middle of doing just that.

D300, 200mm, 1/60, f/20, ISO 800, Nikon R1 close-up flash system (two flashes) at +1 stop. This is about the middle 1/3 of the original image.

Bill

[Stephen Stephen]

Bill the spider looks nicely in focus. The jet black BG adds a nice contrast to the subject.

[Julie Kenward]

Now there's a view we don't get to see every day (or night!) Nice work, Bill. I think you could cut a bit off the right side of the frame, giving the spider even more prominence in the image.

How did you come to decide what camera and flash settings you were going to choose? Did you do test shots or did you have a good idea how to light the scene when you first started? Also, did you need to run any noise reduction on the image or did the flash keep the noise at bay?

[BillTyler]

How did you come to decide what camera and flash settings you were going to choose? Did you do test shots or did you have a good idea how to light the scene when you first started? Also, did you need to run any noise reduction on the image or did the flash keep the noise at bay?

I didn't do a lot of thinking at the time about how to light it - just grabbed the close-up flashes, and a small hot-shoe mounted video light to use in focusing. I did a bit of chimping to dial in a reasonable set of flash numbers, since the black night behind the spider fooled the camera's flash metering into wanting to give too much light. I used a small aperture to get at least a little DOF. The spider moved quite a bit (as the video shows) so staying in focus was somewhat hit or miss. If I try for this guy again, I may put an off-camera flash on a stand and see if I can find a way to mount some kind of background a couple of feet behind the web.

Bill

[Morkel Erasmus]

lovely flashwork - love the strands of web that are visible. sharp as well. great shot!

[Alfred Forns]

Great flash work Bill !!!

Black bg looks good and perfect complement for the spider, I find these hard to shoot and this is a good one !!!! Big Congrats !!!!