Spiders and Spider Webs

Spiders and their webs become increasingly interesting subjects as we enter late summer. They are larger than the spiderlings we saw in spring and early summer, and their webs are larger and more intricate. In addition, cooler mornings give us more opportunity for dewy webs.

These two images demonstrate several issues so vital to effective macrophotography: perspective and depth-of-field (d-o-f). Both images were photographed at f5.6, for shallow depth-of-field. If I had not done this, the spider and web would have disappeared into background clutter. The shallow d-o-f isolated the subject nicely. (In this case the subject is both the spider and the web.

After choosing the aperture, I then took the camera OFF the tripod and moved around the subject as best I could (there were pretty dense bushes in front of the spider, so I could not approach from the front) to evaluate the view from different angles. The lateral angle isolates the spider well, but doesn't show much of the web detail. To show more of the web, I had to photography from slightly below the level of the web (with the camera back on the tripod, of course).