Interrupted meal
Here's a small male house spider that was feeding on a well-wrapped spider until my flash diffuser touched its web. I was experimenting with a Gaertner microscope objective (80mm) reverse mounted on the front of a Nikon 105mm f2.5 AI-S lens... seeing if there was any difference in image quality comparing reversed to non-reversed mounting. There was... flatness of field was better when reversed and there was a bit more working distance. The combination gives pretty good sharpness... you can just make out a strand of silk at the spinnerets. The flash causes the eyes to take on a "pearly" appearance. The objective was mounted in a home-made RMS threaded aluminum disc adapter fitted with several empty 52mm filter rings to prevent the objective from contacting the front of the 105mm. Lighting was provided by the camera's pop up flash shot through a diffuser made from the bowl that comes in a frozen dinner. The spider was located in the corner of my back porch at about waist height. I had to bend over and try to focus without touching the web (failure). Focusing, done by moving the camera forward / backward, was a bit difficult because it was at night and the diffuser obstructed the porch overhead light, making the viewfinder image very dim. One shot was a total dud, the next (this one), was better but contact with the web caused the spider to break away from its meal.
DSC-9121F
Interrupted meal
Here's a small male house spider that was feeding on a well-wrapped spider until my flash diffuser touched its web. I was experimenting with a Gaertner microscope objective (80mm) reverse mounted on the front of a Nikon 105mm f2.5 AI-S lens... seeing if there was any difference in image quality comparing reversed to non-reversed mounting. There was... flatness of field was better when reversed and there was a bit more working distance. The combination gives pretty good sharpness... you can just make out a strand of silk at the spinnerets. The flash causes the eyes to take on a "pearly" appearance. The objective was mounted in a home-made RMS threaded aluminum disc adapter fitted with several empty 52mm filter rings to prevent the objective from contacting the front of the 105mm. Lighting was provided by the camera's pop up flash shot through a diffuser made from the bowl that comes in a frozen dinner. The spider was located in the corner of my back porch at about waist height. I had to bend over and try to focus without touching the web (failure). Focusing, done by moving the camera forward / backward, was a bit difficult because it was at night and the diffuser obstructed the porch overhead light, making the viewfinder image very dim. One shot was a total dud, the next (this one), was better but contact with the web caused the spider to break away from its meal.
DSC-9121F