Black Widow before feeding... Iscorama anamorphic
Here's Elvira in her terrarium, a bit underweight from not eating. She received a diet of small brown crickets through the winter, but seemed to have difficulty snagging one as often as she should. Her body takes on a slightly wrinkled appearance when she's really hungry. Now that warmer weather has returned she gets a variety of readily available food... large carpenter ants, earwigs, and centipedes. Depth of field in this pic is VERY shallow so the zone of sharpest focus was pushed back a bit to render her "wrinkles" as sharp as possible. Taken with a Lester Dine 105mm macro, @ f/22, focused at infinity, fitted with an Iscorama anamorphic lens (1968), and the front cell (objective) from a junk Soligor 75-260mm zoom lens reverse mounted on the Isco. Pop-up flash lighting bounced off foil covered cardboard reflectors on a home-made macro bracket. Lens to subject distance... 10 cm. Working with her small terrarium is a bit of a problem. The short working distance means the lens must extend down into the enclosure without touching her web and causing her to bolt for her refuge under some leaves. One reflector on an arm of the macro bracket is positioned outside the terrarium, the other is carefully positioned inside it... just clearing the walls and her web. If either reflector even slightly contacts the terrarium, she feels the vibration and flees.
DSC-7239
Black Widow before feeding... Iscorama anamorphic
Here's Elvira in her terrarium, a bit underweight from not eating. She received a diet of small brown crickets through the winter, but seemed to have difficulty snagging one as often as she should. Her body takes on a slightly wrinkled appearance when she's really hungry. Now that warmer weather has returned she gets a variety of readily available food... large carpenter ants, earwigs, and centipedes. Depth of field in this pic is VERY shallow so the zone of sharpest focus was pushed back a bit to render her "wrinkles" as sharp as possible. Taken with a Lester Dine 105mm macro, @ f/22, focused at infinity, fitted with an Iscorama anamorphic lens (1968), and the front cell (objective) from a junk Soligor 75-260mm zoom lens reverse mounted on the Isco. Pop-up flash lighting bounced off foil covered cardboard reflectors on a home-made macro bracket. Lens to subject distance... 10 cm. Working with her small terrarium is a bit of a problem. The short working distance means the lens must extend down into the enclosure without touching her web and causing her to bolt for her refuge under some leaves. One reflector on an arm of the macro bracket is positioned outside the terrarium, the other is carefully positioned inside it... just clearing the walls and her web. If either reflector even slightly contacts the terrarium, she feels the vibration and flees.
DSC-7239