Spiders… attack!

Posted: May 21st, 2009 | Author: Brandice |

Normally, I am terrified of spiders, but when I was out walking around and desperate for ANYthing slightly interesting to take a photo of, this spider egg sac hanging delicately within all these strangely curly tree branches made for an interesting shot to try and play around with, so I shot this (among others):

And then, as I’m snapping shots of this gross little pouch, the EGGS HATCHED.

I’m totally amazed that I didn’t immediately run screaming from the little surplus-legged demon babies, but I was so focused on trying to get an interesting shot that I just kept telling myself they couldn’t reach me and didn’t have their baby teeth yet, and I’m really glad I stayed and took more shots. I mean, that’s a pretty cool before and after, right? :)

Here’s my favorite after shot:

I really wish I’d had a macro lens to take some close-ups while I had the nerve, but I’m still pretty happy with what I did get. Any suggestions for how I could’ve taken a more interesting shot? I’m still pretty frustrated with my level of understanding of aperture… it’s on the verge of going click in my brain, but I’m not quite there yet.


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  • I see that the sun was behind the subject you were shooting. I think it would've been interesting if you could've gotten some lens flare in any of those shots. Especially the first and third pictures. It looks like at some point, the sun was shining through the trees so it would've been pretty cool to have captured that.

    As for the settings, you'll need to play around with that. I'm still trying to figure it out myself on how to get the flare. Sometimes i get the rays of light and other times, its a hot mess. What seems to work for me is shooting wide open (the lower f-stop number--->larger aperture) and playing around with the shutter speed.

    Good luck!
  • Yeah, I would've liked to get some lens flare too, but have no idea how to get it... I'm really struggling with looking at a scene/object and wanting it to look exactly like it looks to me and then when I take the shot certain things sharpen or change in focus and I'm still working out which settings do what.

    I really into light through trees right now, I've noticed, so I think I'll be spending a lot of time playing with how to get it to look the way I want it to. I've been shooting "wide open" most of the time too, as low of an f-stop number as the camera will give me, and I'm all over the place with ISO settings (lots of people say lots of different things about what the best ISO is... confuzzling). If you figure out some good flare-friendly settings, let me know! :)
  • In general, the best ISO is the lowest you can get away with, because the higher you go, the grainier/noisier the photo will get. The way I usually shoot, is I choose an aperture in Av (aperture priority) mode, then I see what shutter speed the camera picks--if it's too slow to handhold without being blurry, I either decide to open up the aperture a bit more or up the ISO. If it's a good speed, I keep it as is.

    To decide on the aperture, I generally stay around 8, since I've heard that's generally the "sweet spot" of the lens. If I'm taking a portrait, it's nice to open the aperture (lower f-stop), so the depth of field is a little less and the background is blurry. If I'm doing more of a landscape shot, I stop down (higher f-stop), to keep more in focus.

    Also, if you're looking for a fun lens to get, try the Canon 50mm f/1.8 lens. It's only about $70 and is seriously my favorite lens I own. It's incredibly sharp, and photos just always seem to come out really nicely with it. Plus, you can use it in darker conditions without having to resort to using a flash, due to the low f-stop.
  • Very beautiful pictures.
  • Thanks! :)
  • petlachat
    Three cheers for the spiders. I hope they eat ticks.
    PS I already have Disqus registration. Where is the button for that?
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