Taken on my way home from work. A bridge that I cross is a favourite haunt of spiders. Here are some of them. They were very tolerant of my paparazzi-ing, sometimes within an inch of their faces.

[pid]

cool! which setting did you use?

[Thagomizer]

First two are with the Sigma 70mm f2.8 macro, the second two combined the Sigma with a Vivitar 2X macro focusing teleconverter. (EXIF indicating 180mm on these ones is wrong. I've been playing with a Tamron 52BB 90mm f2.5 and had been using it with the V2XMFTC. Multiplying that gives 180mm for SR, but I had 180mm on the brain when I should have done the math properly to get 140mm instead. I think 135mm is the closest input setting to that. I'll have to be more careful!)

All used f11, with shutter speed set manually for flash sync speed or a bit slower. For light I used the K-S2's built in flash with a Pringles tin extender/diffuser. I usually set the flash manually, backing off from full power as needed. I shot in live view, but the image was quite dim and speckled. I got some help with lighting on the bridge rails that would backlight the spiders, giving me a silhouette that I could focus on, moving the camera slightly back from that point so that the eyes would be in focus. Sometimes I could see the reflections of ambient light in the eyes or other shiny bits and use that as a focusing aid as well. The articulated screen allows me to shoot from angles that would otherwise be impossible to get.

[pid]

thank you!

[jddwoods]

Yikes! The fangs on the last one. How big is it?

[Thagomizer]

The body of this one was about 1.5-2cm if I recall correctly. Not very big compared to #1 and #3. I think it's a long jawed orb weaver, genus Tetragnatha.

[old4570]

Really excellent

[Thagomizer]

Thanks everyone for the kind words. I'm glad people like my images. I feel like I'm just starting to learn how to do this stuff; it's good to get feedback and encouragement.