Cat-Faced Spider, (Araneus gemmoides) spinnerets
Single exposure taken with a Nikon D60, Nikkor-H 85mm f/1.8 lens, with a Soligor 38mm f/1.9 "D" type 8mm movie camera lens reverse mounted on the 85mm. Both lenses were focused at infinity. Field width is just under 2mm at a working distance of 1cm. Lighting provided by a Nikon SB-23 Speedlight flashed through a modified (cut down) flash diffuser made from the plastic dish that came in a frozen dinner.
The spider was hanging on a twig in a small terrarium where there was almost no room to work without the diffuser contacting the twig, or the lens touching her. Depth of field is extremely shallow. Here she has two strands of silk payed out... one straight and under a bit of tension, anchored to another twig. The other shows a bit of slack.
I found her dead a few days later on a leaf below the twig. She might have been injured by the below freezing temperature outside the morning I found her. Some of these do "winter over", becoming active when spring arrives, but not this one.
DSC-2175
Cat-Faced Spider, (Araneus gemmoides) spinnerets
Single exposure taken with a Nikon D60, Nikkor-H 85mm f/1.8 lens, with a Soligor 38mm f/1.9 "D" type 8mm movie camera lens reverse mounted on the 85mm. Both lenses were focused at infinity. Field width is just under 2mm at a working distance of 1cm. Lighting provided by a Nikon SB-23 Speedlight flashed through a modified (cut down) flash diffuser made from the plastic dish that came in a frozen dinner.
The spider was hanging on a twig in a small terrarium where there was almost no room to work without the diffuser contacting the twig, or the lens touching her. Depth of field is extremely shallow. Here she has two strands of silk payed out... one straight and under a bit of tension, anchored to another twig. The other shows a bit of slack.
I found her dead a few days later on a leaf below the twig. She might have been injured by the below freezing temperature outside the morning I found her. Some of these do "winter over", becoming active when spring arrives, but not this one.
DSC-2175