Spotted Orb Weavers

[Photosharp]

I took the family on adventure into the Uwharrie National Forest one week ago. The challenge for me and my wife is, not to get too preoccupied with our photo subjects because the children and our two dogs are not so patient! I snapped a quick photo of an interesting spider on a trail, though the group was moving on and sadly, I must keep up, so I too was moving. That evening I stepped outside to allow the dogs to run in the back yard and was buzzed by a large Cicada. I watched it circle around to the front of the house and out of sight. When I stepped to the front porch my wife showed me the Cicada trapped in a a spiders web that was nearly a half metre in diameter. I watched briefly wondering if the spider had simply abandoned this particular web, or was hiding? Only a moment later appears the host of this large silk platter, a Spotted Orb Weaver, nearly the same color and size as the one I took those brief photos of hours earlier, hundreds of miles west from my area. I scrambled to get the camera gear out and lighting equipment needed to capture this moment! Unfortunately, it was raining and in a precarious spot off of the porch, the ground was very unstable for tripods of lighting and camera equipment. It took so long to setup, (maybe 1.5 minuets) the spider was nearly done wrapping this Cicada up. I snapped one as he was completing the process, not a very clear image I regret to say it is not a very clear crisp shot. However with more rain stopping the spiders efforts I was given some much needed time to reset and try a few things. The things I tried I am very pleased to say worked out very well. Not only does the Canon T3i shoot very good still images, it has tremendous HD video capabilities, (I have 1080 video of the injection of the saliva that turns the organs of the meal to a spider milkshake!) I ended up with 60mm in extension tubes attached to a Tamron 70-300mm set at 300mm, This brought my focus distance to a mere half meter, Tamron claims this lens to have a minimum focus distance of 1.5m but i found the effective area of focus is displayed at about 2m. The Canon T3i was stopped at f5.6(the exif data is only partial due to non powered macro extensions), shot at 1/100 sec., the "film" exposure speed was ISO400. I used the camera mounted flash in combination with a single florescent light without the softening umbrella and no reflector whatsoever, I was wanting to keep the light sharp and have no softening, this did not seem the subject to be anything but extremely sharp. All told, it was a long four hours, but the learning experience was worth the time invested. Now I have my own living national geographic on my front porch. As I type this, a large horsefly is seemingly cleaning himself for the dinner that will take place this evening is trapped within the lovely tela de araņa, when this nocturnal species spider wakes to see his daily catch waiting in the suspended dinner buffet. Enjoy! Please critique my photos, I am here to learn I seek greatness in all I do.

[tesarver]

Re: Spotted Orb Weavers

Nothing to critique on that 1st image

Tom

[Hereford_EOS]

Re: Spotted Orb Weavers

Good image and a great story