The lone wolf

[shane shacaluga]

Have been out lamping recently to find nocturnal insects, and by far the most impressive I am finding are the adult female Lycosa hispanica (Wolf Spiders) You can spot these from quite a distance with a headlamp and they are generally quite cooperative

NIkon D7000
70-300mm @ 70mm with Raynox DCR-250
f14
1/125
ISO 125

Hand held using a home made flash diffusor on the inbuilt flash

Have been using the magnifying glass on my live view mode with excellent results. Pity my Nikon has this button on the left hand side which is a bit awkward.

Cropped a bit off the top but was impossible to get the full legs in the frame with my macro setup so decided on a more detailed look at the pretty face

Hope you enjoy

[Nancy Bell]

Fabulous face with very impressive eyes...all of them! Love the fine details you captured of the short orange fringes around the eyes and those longer elegant black ones. She is a beauty! Seeing all of the legs would have been nice, but this crop also works, having that face being the main point of interest. I also like that the legs that extend out in the same plane as the face also have the same excellent details. Nice bit of detail in the foreground with good colors that extend into the bkgd. That is a good tip on using a magnifying glass with live view. I will certainly try that.

[Mitch Haimov]

VWD, Shane! The comp works well and you have good sharpness on this very interesting subject. Only thing I would change would be to bring down the brightness on the abdomen, two rear pairs of legs, and the light patches on the undersides of front two pairs of legs.

[shane shacaluga]

Thanks for your comments guys. I did try toning down the oof abdomen but it looked a bit unnatural. May try to process again and see if i get it to look ok.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Well focused shot with good detail. I like the image as it is. An alternative would be to go in tighter to include the head and eyes area so excluding the legs which can be slightly distracting.

[shane shacaluga]

Thanks Jonathan

I have another one where the face fills the entire frame ;)

Do you think I should clean the small catch lights in the main pair of eyes? Wasn't sure if I should remove them or not

[Jonathan Ashton]

I don't mid catch lights provided they look natural. I think you are referring to multiple highlights (??), in this case I would remove the tiny ones and leave the principal ones in place.

[shane shacaluga]

I think you are referring to multiple highlights (??), in this case I would remove the tiny ones and leave the principal ones in place.

Thanks

Those are the ones I meant

[Steve Maxson]

Hi Shane. This is quite nice for a shot taken at night. Good sharpness on those beautiful eyes where you most need it and I like the pano crop. I would agree with Jon about removing the tiny highlights in the two large eyes. I might wish that the shadow under the spider wasn't so black - but that is hard to deal with at night when using only one flash. Overall, this is very well done!

[shane shacaluga]

Thanks for your comments. Any hand-holdable 2 flash rigs that would have helped here?

[Mitch Haimov]

Nikon and Canon both make flash units for macro with two flash heads. Perhaps others as well. The heads can be mounted to the front of the lens or on brackets. I believe Nikon's is wireless (convenient, but heavier because the heads need batteries).

[Jason Stander]

Hi Shane... this an excellent shot... I am very happy with way it is present... great detail, angle and crop... VWD!