It occurs to me that there must be some other dopers that are interested in macro and close-up photography. So I figured I’d creat this thread and find out. Please post an example of one of your pictures and tell us a little about it.
I’ll start I with this picture of a bald-faced hornet (Dolichovespula maculata) that I shot last summer.
The cool thing is that I barely remember taking it. I did a lot of shooting last summer and have quite a number of images stored on my computer. I was going through a series of photos of flesh flies when I came upon this cool portrait.
I love the details in the face which makes it look like it’s wearing a mask made from an animal skull. I’m also facinated by the way the wasp is resting with its front legs off the ground. I’ve noticed before that these critters do this, but I have no idea why. Does it allow a quick getaway, or maybe keeps the front legs free to help capture prey?
The technical stuff:
Camera: Olympus OM-D E-M5
Lens: Zuiko 60mm micro four thirds macro
Settings: manual exposure (F11 @ 1/160 sec)
Lighting: Olympus flash (I don’t remember which one or the setting—oops!)
ISO: 200
They’re incredibly active - constantly on the move and looking around them. It’s hard not to be amused by them, because they seem to look up at you in a totally fearless “You think you’re tough? Huh? Come and get a piece of this!!” kind of way. Lovely little creatures, but a pain in the neck to photograph.
Canon EOS 60D, Canon 100mm f/2.8 macro lens at f/8, 1/400s
They’re incredibly active - constantly on the move and looking around them. It’s hard not to be amused by them, because they seem to look up at you in a totally fearless “You think you’re tough? Huh? Come and get a piece of this!!” kind of way. Lovely little creatures, but a pain in the neck to photograph.
Canon EOS 60D, Canon 100mm f/2.8 macro lens at f/8, 1/400s
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Yeah, I love jumping spiders too. And I agree that they are a challenge to photograph. The easiest way to do it is wait until they have caught something to eat and have settled down to munch on it. I took this photo last summer on our screen door. Every morning there would be a few midges sitting on the screen when the sun came up. Shortly afterwards a couple of these little spiders would show up to hunt them down. This is a female zebra jumping spider (*Salticus *scenicus) that has caught a non-biting midge (chironomid).
Hah! Great shot. Is that the reflection of a ring flash in the spider’s eyes? It would be great if you could share your setup for that - did you use a lightbox?
