More Spiders

At the risk of becoming repititious I found another spider in the backyard today.  This time it was a young St Andrews Cross spider.  Not only are they smaller than a mature spider but their web is different with a disk in the centre of the web instead of the usual cross, which makes it a more interesting subject in my opinion.  The disk was almost the size of a five cent piece and smaller than the abdomen of my previous subject.

With the Garden spider in the last post to this blog I used the hand held tele lens so this time I dragged out the 100mm Macro and trusty tripod.  The bright sun was creating burnt out areas so, to cast a shadow, first I tried draping a white handkerchief over the bush to lessen the effect and then I used a car window sunscreen I had picked up in a $2 shop.  It worked nicely and much cheaper than if I had bought it from a specialist camera shop.  Where the hanky cast a darker, constant shadow, the screen let though sufficient variation in the lighting to give a more natural effect and much softer than using flash.

I'm still not happy with this shot though, as the focus is all on the left side.  I need to go back tomorrow and make sure I align the camera square with the web.  This is the hardest challenge I have found with using a macro lens, to get the shot you are striving for, the lens must be positioned precisely in the exact, correct position due to the miniscule DoF.

I need to use it more to become more comfortable with it.