Micro spider newly shed

[Colin Driscoll]

Another from my stacked Raynox experiment. The spider shed its skeleton as I watched- do have earlier shots. The whole frame is about 8mm tall.

50D 100 macro IS stacked Raynox 150 & 250 1/125 f18 -.33ev iso800.

Handheld, IS in this lens is marvellous. A slight crop. Cloned a small blade of grass from BG.

[Julie Kenward]

Colin, I like the story this tells and the luminosity of the spider and it's shell is very nice. A little cleaner and more even BG probably would have taken this up another notch so watch for that next time. A little more DOF on those long spider legs also would have been another plus. Bravo to you for trying to stack an image - it's certainly not easy!

[Mike Moats]

Hey Colin, I don't mind the background, but for me I need more depth of field to see more details in the subjects. This would be fine if you're going after an abstract feel, but in this case I think it's more about documenting wants hapenning here.

[Ken Childs]

Colin, considering the magnification I think you did really well but like previous comments, I'm wishing there was more DOF. You definitely get an A for effort!

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Colin,
Can't add much more to comments above.....so I will ask a question.....given the magnification, how does your setup compare to a macro lens with a TC or tubes....magnification wise? I'd be really interested in knowing that!

[Steve Maxson]

I really like the biological story this image tells, Collin, but agree that more DOF would take this to another level.

[Colin Driscoll]

Thanks for looking and for the comments. I've attached a shot of the setup.

The full frame widths at closest focus:

100 Macro 20mm
lens plus full set of Kenko tubes 11mm
or lens plus Raynox 150 & 250 (4x magnification) 8mm

The Raynox setup gives a full stop extra light advantage over the tubes. Also, the reason that I wanted to try this was that I had found that shots using the tubes just weren't crisp. I think the lens just doesn't like being that far from the sensor.

It's going to take some practise to get top class shots. I've posted so far 'cos I thought some might be interested in the setup. DOF will be a problem being so close to such small subjects. As you can see the spider shot was f18 and that was in full sunlight so f32 would have been a bit too slow. Also ithe spider was so small that if I had tried a different angle I wouldn't have found it again.