This image was taken with my Nikon N70 with Fuji Sensia II 200, Sigma 70-210 at 70mm and F4, 1/10 second. This is a pair of spiders. She is bigger. Any comments?

-- Joe Cheatwood (cheatwoo@ufl.edu), August 03, 1998

Answers

Joe, These are golden silk spiders (Nephila clavipes), not golden orb spiders (Argiope aurantia), for whatever common names are worth. I would have tried to get all of the male's upper leg into the frame, and since you were shooting at 1/10 second, you must have been using a tripod, right? Why not stop down a couple more f/stops and try to get all of the female's legs in focus? These are minor quibbles, though. The background is nice, and the translucency of her legs is lovely. Spiders are a deceptively difficult subject to shoot, in my opinion, and you've done a fine job. Keep up the good work (and stay off the trail!!!!).

-- Four-pig Pete (peter.may@stetson.edu), August 04, 1998.

Peter,

Thanks for the correction. I will have to severely chastise the person who misinformed me. :) I will be more careful in the future. Thanks for posting! Seems to be a little dead around here.

By the way, all the shots I took at a aperture greater than this were underexposed, for some odd reason. I did take one at f22 and use a flash. That one came out pretty well, also, but I chose to post this one since the flash destroyed the look I wanted to convey (not to mention making the male harder to see). If you or anyone else would like to see the other one it is available at:

http://grove.ufl.edu/~cheatwoo/nature/golden.jpg

--Joe

-- Joe Cheatwood (cheatwoo@ufl.edu), August 04, 1998.

It looks like the camera might not have been parallel to the spiders, with the right side of the spider slightly farther away than the left side. having the spider in the same plane of focus would have made it sharper.

I don't think f4 is enough. IMO you should be at the other end of the apature spectrum f16 at least so the spiders and web are sharp. When increasing the depth of filed, remember to take into account the background which also will appear sharper.

-- brad mills (dbradmills@aol.com), August 04, 1998.