Looking for tips on photographing Tarantulas

[Critterfarm]

Having just found this site, I've spent a good bit of time looking through the posts and have seen some incredible pictures. (SilverDragon has an amazing pic of a Hadrurus arizonensis on the scorp board btw )

Before today, the only pictures of tarantulas or other "bugs" I've taken were for inventory purposes or to fax to interested parties. Now I wanna try some portrait type pics like I've seen here. I've a decent camera setup[Canon Powershot S410, with a couple lenses and remote hotfoot] and take average vacation style photos quite a bit. I need you guys to throw some tips at me so I can try my hand at this.

• Ways to 'pose' a really pissed off African that you had to dig out for her photo?
• How to take pics through the glass/plastic of the terrarium?
• Lighting tips for macros
• Comment on how adept I've become with the Quote, Edit, and List buttons

Thanks in advance for the help.

 

[whoami?]

First of all, make sure you have a lens that'll zoom in that far. Because if you don't, the picture will be blurry as hell when you enlarge the part of it that youwaNT TO keep.

 

[Kevo]

As long as you.ve got an average digital camera with macro facility, just take loads of pic,s, discard the bad ones, and show the good ones.
Just trial and error....lol.....:}


BTW: Play with the flash settings. And take pictures at different angles....

 

[MrT]

Kevo is right, trial and error is the only way to learn what YOUR camera will do. A tripod helps alot too.

Ernie

 

[Chris V]

No lie. Once you buy a digital camera you'll never go back. Its just so easy and there's no waste of film. Not to mention that they have really come down in price here the last year or so.

 

[Critterfarm]

Thanks guys. Think I'll go collect some moss and bark and make a little tarantula modeling studio and give it hell.

 

[metzgerzoo]

Just my opinion

Sometimes real pisst off Ts make for very cool pix. They tend to "pose" themselves and are particularly fond of "showing some fang"

 

[deifiler]

Greetings,

My best advice is:

• Lighting is essential, for a start, bad lighting = bad focusing. Always use good lighting, even if you plan to use a flash.
• Use trial runs: set up a spider ready for photographing, then methodically work through the camera's different settings, being sure to take one photo with each. Throughout this, do not[/i] alter the subject, lighting or positions, the intention is to see how the settings on the camera differ. Also on this note, be sure to have a fiddle aroudn and become acustomed to your editing software.
  [*]Don't take pictures through glass/plastic, unless its purely for an informative style photo, i.e. sexing purposes if you'd rather not hold the spider.
  [*]ALWAYS remove artificial items prior to the shooting, especially plastic water trays. This also includs the tip "Don't get the tank walls in the photo".
  [*]If you're using a tripod, discard the ones that 'extend' with a central branch - they are effectively a three legged monopod, and won't steady the camera as desired.
  [*]Be sure you know *exactly* where the camera is focused before taking shots. The camera will focus on the foreground, e.g., spiders protruding legs; central, e.g., the spider's carapace; background, e.g., rear legs. Be aware of how one focus is seen to effect the different areas of the photograph. Also become educated on how different angles and depths of fields can take advantages and play on the focusing. Of course there are many many different focus styles and settings, so play around.
  
  
  

I'm no professional, just a kid with a camera, too much time and a suitable passion for which to fill it; trial and error is the key Hope they help...
www.the-hatchery.co.uk has some of my pics on

 

[neilhayles]

Hi Dan, ive got to say.... you have some awesome photos on your site mate!!!!!!:}
cheers...Neil

 

[luther]

Good lighting will enable you to use a smaller aperture. This will mean that your depth of field will increase. This is important for a macro shot. You don't want just one leg in focus, you want the whole T.

Use scattered, diffused lighting if possible. Try bouncing your flash off a white sheet, placed to the side of the subject. Flashes and shooting through glass tanks don't go well together. I like daylight or fluorescent lighting.

If you're holding the T it's best that someone else takes the pictures.

Get a digital camera. This means you can fire off endless shots and then check for quality later, when time is less important. That's handy when your subject might not want to hang about for long.

Experiment.

Post some pics for us all to see!

 

[Malkavian]

I hear everyone calling for a digital camera, let me add my opinion to the mix (Disclaimer: I talk shop at least once a week with a pro photographer)

A digital cam will let you take as many pics as you care to with no film cost. This is important esp if you don't know the basics already. "wasting" rolls of film is highly annoying.


However, a film camera can give you a superior catalog of lenses and other equipment whereas with a digital you may only (depending on what brand you buy) have access to lenses made by the camera's manufacturer.

However since you didn't ask for advice on cam purchases i'll assume you've already made your choice one way or the other.

For macros you geneerallly want as much light as you can, as luther said, in order to get a better aperture so you dont have just the head or face of the T in focus --true macro lenses have TINY depths of field and as such a long object such as a T is very hard to get all in focus.

Photograph your subjects either on a background that compliments their coloration or in a natural setting

Forget about shooting through glass

Become aquainted with a program such as Adobe Photoshop Elements or the full fledged Photoshop, these applications are great for such things as color cast from lighting, tweaking contrast and bringing out colors

 

[Slide]

Lighting lighting lighting.
It's all about the lighting.

But then again, photography isn't much without light.

For any sort of potraiture (be it people, or arachnid), you want to provide even, full lighting - try eliminating as much shadowing as possible.

For the best shots, you'll want a fairly powerful, full-spectrum light. Metal halides work pretty well, as do color-corrected (9000K) "daylight" fluorescents. Use this behind something to diffuse the light (say, a piece of thin white paper, a white sheet, etc).

Use the flash to fill in any shadows from the side your photographing from. You want some seperation between the flash and the lense to avoid reflection and glare, but not a huge amount, and a bit of a delay (your subject should already be well lit -- you're just trying to use the flash to augment that lighting and clean up the few remaining shadows). Most digital cameras with a flash should provide a 'macro' setting that will adjust the flash timing to work appropriately, otherwise play with the portrait or fill-in settings.

As was mentioned earlier, you'll want to use a smaller aperture setting (if you have any control over it, otherwise the 'macro' setting on most cameras will correct this for you) to get more of the subject in focus. At macro sizes, your depth-of-field becomes extremely narrow when using lower aperture settings, and it's very easy to end up with less than half of the carapace in focus, even on a tiny spiderling.

If you're using SLR/DSLR, also consider the focal length of your lens, and the capabilities of your glass.

The smaller the focal length of your lense, the more 'spread out' the individual features of your subject will become. This tends to lend itself to a better sense of depth, and a more visually-pleasing photo. However, the shorter the focal length, the closer you will need to get the lens to the subject to approach 1:1 (or greater).

For instance, using a Nikkor 60mm Micro, in order to achieve 1:1 the end of the lens will need to be about 1" away from the subject, and you'll really have to dose it with light to maintain a small aperture.

Nikon also has a nice 200mm Micro, and this gives you soemthing like 18" of space between the end of the lens and the subject, making it a lot less intrusive for photographing insects/arachnids and other small objects that don't like being disturbed. The tradeoff here is that, having a significantly longer focal length, the subject will appear to be a lot more 'compressed' in that features will be more compressed, the image will lack a certain amount of depth, etc.

Also, consider the noise of the lens mechanisms if you're using autofocus. Nikkor makes some great glass, but it's not necessarily quiet, so I'd recommend manual focus. Canon, on the other hand, makes a nearly noiseless focus mechanism, and so long as the camera can pick out your subject, autofocus should be fine.

I won't get into the whole camera debate, other than to say that I use digital solely for point-and-shoot /one-off purposes, and use a Nikon 35mm SLR for anything "important." I'm not averse to using digital, just that I can't afford to drop $1000 on a DSLR system, and as Malkavian pointed out -- the repetoire of lenses for an SLR system (beit digital or otherwise) is invaluable. Until then, there's Fujichrome Velvia 50.

Well, now that I've written a hasty thesis on macro photography, of which I'm probably not qualified to write, I think it's time to crawl back into my corner and get some work done..

Best of luck with the photos, and don't forget -- the best way to improve your photographic skills, is to have your photos peer-reviewed, ESPECIALLY the ones you don't like.

Cheers!

 

[BigBadConrad]

don't ask me!

Critterfarm,

I'm hoping to learn myself. I've taken hundreds of pics with a Coolpix 4300 I got two months ago. Tripod, ring light, 2X lens, back lights. I know the camera fairly well now and have tried every mode, changing one variable at a time, etc. But I have yet to get a single good macro shot (or even a good indoor shot, for that matter) that is in focus and has the proper exposure. It's looking like I'll have to go back to the good ole Canon AE-1 if I want any decent macros.

There's an excellent digital photography forum that you're probably already aware of called www.dpreview.com. Very busy, and forums for different interests and by brand of camera. Good luck.

Anybody wanna buy a Coolpix? Just kidding. I think I'm going to send it to Nikon to see if there's something wrong with the focus. I spent an hour on the phone with customer support the other day, trying different suggestions with no luck. He thought it might be defective. I hope it is, instead of it just being "user error".

-John

 

[Jeff_C]

Everything that they said

I've been trying for a few weeks now to get good shots of my Ts and I think they get better each time. I just keep trying different things and keep notes so that I can replicate what I've done. I think it also helps to set up a studio of sorts so that at least things like lighting and positioning remain somewhat constant.

I've been playing with different lighting and I think I will take some of Slide's advice myself.

Here's a quick snap of my 'studio':




Jeff

 

[MizM]

Nice studio, but you really need a fan to blow the models' hair around!

If possible, I like to take my T photos outdoors in natural light. Bearskin had some really nice ones in the photo contest that were taken outside. If not possible, I myself use the lightbulb that mimics sunlight (I can't remember the name right now! )

I don't take awesome pictures by the way, they are passable! (Just!!!)

 

[Critterfarm]

wow..thanks for all the great advice. You people are a godsend.

I fooled around wit it a bit this afternoon, only thing I really managed to do was get nailed by a Desert Hairy scorp lol. I've got a couple of begineer pics I'll put up after I play with photoshop a bit more this evening.

All the reccomendations about gear are great. If someone could take a look at what I've got and help me fill in any gaps:
Camera - Canon Powershot S410 [4 Mpixels, 3.5 optical, 3 digital] with a macro lens/remote flash hotfoot/lightring adapter.
Tripod - el cheapo $60.00 Ritz Camera tripod, the legs adjust for hieght not the telescoping pole type.
Lighting - about a zillion metal halide/full spectrum flourescents in all wavelenghts imaginable [I sell fish for a living lol] as well as a white led light ring and the flash on the camera.
Ambition - Lots
Experience - None

Defiler - the pics on your site are exactly what I'm talking about. Shows true talent and the remarkable beauty of Tarantulas

BigBadConrad - nice setup. The pic is exactly the nudge I needed to envision a Tarantula photo studio. My yard of sod and strip of Elm bark on the deck out back studio didn't work as well as I'd hoped