Encounter with a small eight legged wonder

[Prajwal J Ullal]

Some experiments of Macro photography with a beautiful yet small spider...

Canon S5 IS
Shutterspeed-1/200
Aperture-F/6.3
ISO 80
Focal length 6mm
Exposure compensation +.7step

Image later cropped

[Mrudul Godbole]

I think it is a jumping spider (Abhishek please conform :)). Wish the light was from behind you. Do check the AF point as the image appears to be a little soft. The low angle is nice.Thanks for sharing.

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Prajwal,
The light is from behind, so the front side is in shade. It would have been good if the spider was facing the Sun.

A lower angle would have been even better. The camera faces difficulty in focusing on less contrast areas. In macro photography due to the close focusing distances the depth of field is very low. So one needs to be careful about the focus.

The crack on the earth is at the left of the frame. I would have been good if that could have pointed towards the spider. Thanks for sharing.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Prajwal J Ullal]

Thanks for your valuable comment Sir

The photo was taken early in the morning, and an attempt to get the spider under direct natural light, and photographing in macro mode, lead to either mine or camera's shadow falling into the frame...The manual focusing in Canon S5IS is very tricky and getting complete control over it is very difficult, so most of the photos are taken in auto focus mode. Here is another attempt I had tried, this time with the flash on

[Mrudul Godbole]

The original image looks better. In this the background has got burnt and is distracting. You need to photograph in the early morning light or in the late evening when the light is less harsh. Thanks for sharing.

[Abhishek Jamalabad]

Hi Prajwal,
It is indeed a Jumping Spider. Check the exact id from southindianspiders.org... It would be better if you focus manually. With subjects this small, one can easily miss the desired point of critical focus. I agree it would look better if the spider were facing the sun.
Jumping spiders are very inquisitive, and have an interesting habit of following the camera, unlike other creatures which try to escape. So when clicking these spiders, you can easily position yourself at the required angle, and the spider will turn to face you. :)

TFS, look forward to more.