Banded Garden Spider

[Paul Lagasi]

Last saturday I was walking through milkweed plants looking for a Monarch Caterpiller, I almost walked into this spider on his web...I was sure surprised, I thought it was huge and the web was incredibly strong. I had a friend stand behind the web (he was wearing a camera vest), so I could shoot with a lighter background, to bounce my flash off of.

I tried a few images but could never get the spider all in focus due to DOF.
So what I did was take an image of the legs, head and thorax (think thats what its called).
Then I took another image of the abdomen....I masked the abdomen copied it and blended it into the first...harder to say than do...

This was the resulting image:
Both images taken with D70
Nikon macro 105 2.8
sb-800

Web, legs, thorax & head f16
1/160
iso 640
hand held

Abdomen f9
1/500
iso 640
hand held

I know its a combined image but it turned out so well, I wanted to post it
Thanks
p.s. Not sure why smaller version is blurry, original is sharp???

[Mark T Helm]

congratulations Paul, spiders are difficult at best and to change f:stops and get 2 images to compose a clear image is a great shoot. I do a lot of focal stacks but I have not ever changed f: stops, normally I just change the focus point so I learned something new,and I now know were Bells Corners is.

[John Storjohann]

Paul, interesting approach to increasing DOF and a visually pleasing image. It would have been nice if the BG had been either a single color or perhaps a little more blurred so that the heavier lines were more diffuse, but often hard to do in the field. Great color on the spider, love the complex lines of the web...well done under less than ideal conditions! :cheers:

[Jonathan Ashton]

I think you have done a great job, I like the background - it has a touch of realism about it.

[christopher galeski]

very nice image Paul,like the colorsof the spider.well done.

[Steve Maxson]

Hi Paul. Very nice job on the composite and a good way to overcome a challenge in the field! (Just as a point of information for folks - in spiders, what we would call the head and thorax are fused and are called the cephalothorax. So in contrast to insects which have 3 body segments head/thorax/abdomen, spiders have only 2 body segments cephalothorax/abdomen.) I like the comp, the nice light, and that the web is sharp throughout. I would agree with John about wishing for a little less detail in the background, but overall, this is a very strong image!

[Brendan Dozier]

Paul, this is a very cool looking spider, and nice job on the execution and composition! Great color, and creative problem solving for the BG! Nice work!

[jack williamson]

This is very well done Paul. The spider is sharp everywhere. I like the bg color.

Jack

[Anita Bower]

Nice job! I tried photographing one of these a few days ago--poor results, but I enjoyed watching it weave while viewing with live view!

[Arthur Morris]

Great idea and great job on the dof blending. The big fat round thing at the back is the abdomen. Just in front of that is the thorax, and then the tiny head. Neat colors and pattern and nice vest.