How To Take Identifiable Photos of Jumping Spiders

[The Snark]

I agree 100%. Over time you learn the best angles for each species. To get the most valuable parts in focus.

PING! Light bulb! In focus. And angle. And lighting. When I helped a pro photographer doing a major catalogue on a deadline. She had 4 cameras around her neck and the main camera on a tripod with tape on the floor where the models were to stand. My job was loading film and moving lights around while she was all over the place taking hundreds of shots from various angles. With three models being paid from when they left the agency costing a small fortune she didn't have the opportunity to get those perfectly framed and focused shots every time! Thus the reason she took several thousand pics. The same as you getting the correct part of the spider. The clothing in sharp focus with color, lighting, contrast, angle and distance having to be complimentary. That never fully sank into my mind until you mentioned it. And she had the extra difficulty that the models faces always had to be in focus along with whatever they were wearing.

 

[Jonathan6303]

I don’t know if this would go here but to help identify a lot of common sp. or at least give a genus. I would recommend everyone purchase
Common Spiders of North America by Richard A. Bradley

 

[dragonblade71]

all the basic macro lenses have a very poor depth of field. That is, a very precise distance from lens to subject, or part of the subject. The rest will be blurry. So when you focus on a spider, choose what part of the spider you want in focus.

Ive never heard of depth of field being described as "poor" before. Generally, we have shallow or large depth of field or somewhere in between those two extremes. When photographing people or animals, the usual advice is to focus on the eyes. However, when it comes to spiders, that's a bit tricky because they have so many eyes. I would probably focus on the two largest eyes because they kind of resemble the two eyes that people and most animals have. That's one thing that we can relate to. And if the jumping spider happens to be at an angle, I would recommend focusing on the closest of those two big eyes.

 

[The Snark]

Ive never heard of depth of field being described as "poor" before.

I'm by no means a savvy photographer here. That was the term the photographer used when he was trying to explain things to me. As I understand it, both shallow or deep and how large perimeter wise. He used a microscope as an example in his explanations, with both distance and the subject being centered in the focal sweet spot. He used shooting the cue ball in snooker as an example. With a large precision ground lens the cue ball is out in the middle of the table with the entire sphere open to be hit by the cue. A large workable area. The cheap lenses, the ball is against a cushion with only a fraction of the sphere usable -visible. So the non precision macro lens has a much smaller workable area. Thus the difficulty getting precise focus. Instead of a full circle depth of field you get a small half or quarter moon moon shape.
This make sense? If you can explain it better my photography challenged brain would be happy to hear it!
The part that made the most sense to me was macro lenses are large for a reason. The larger the area the easier it is to make a precision grinding of the lens. This makes sense to my machinist brain. We are talking fractions of a micron with parallelism, arc, specifying the function equal to f(x), (setting of the a and b points. 1. f x = sin x. 2. a = − 1. 8. 3. b = 5. 2 5. 4.), concentricity and exact repeatability from lens to lens. The cheaper lense manufacturers aren't about to invest in a $100,000 grinding machine that requires an expert technician to adjust and correct after a given number of lenses. And of course, cell phone camera lenses aren't ground at all. Attaching a macro lens to them helps but they aren't likely to be giving the lens the full circle of workable area.


A good example would be the pictures by @Nicole C G . https://arachnoboards.com/threads/temporary-guest.355162/
If you measure the focal area in her pictures the circle of the focal zone is flattened at the top but the lower area is a full circle. So she is getting about a 3/4 moon focal area. She could check this by taking a picture of a black and white grid at a 90 degree angle then various angles from all quarters.

 

[dragonblade71]

He used shooting the cue ball in snooker as an example. With a large precision ground lens the cue ball is out in the middle of the table with the entire sphere open to be hit by the cue. A large workable area. The cheap lenses, the ball is against a cushion with only a fraction of the sphere usable -visible. So the non precision macro lens has a much smaller workable area. Thus the difficulty getting precise focus. Instead of a full circle depth of field you get a small half or quarter moon moon shape.

Regardless if you're using a cheap or expensive lens, the rules for depth of field should remain the same. How much or how little depth of field we get is dictated by the aperture, lens focal length and subject to camera distance. Assuming that we're comparing two 50mm macro lenses at the same aperture, the only other variable is the camera to subject distance. If we're comparing a cheap lens and an expensive lens, the amount of depth of field we get should be the same if we're using the same camera to subject distance (whether that be mm or cm etc.) Remember that the plane of focus that intersects our subject is like a thin vertical wall. This 'wall' is parallel to the focal plane in our camera (where the film or sensor sits) - unless we're using the Scheimpflug principle in a view camera or tilt shift lens but that's a discussion for another day. When the depth of field is increased, that 'wall' gets significantly thicker. I'm not sure about these circles you're referring to. Are you talking about circles of confusion?

And I would say that getting precise focus comes down to the particular lens when using (a dampened focusing ring found on many old manual lenses really helps here) and the viewing system and any focusing aids that we have at our disposal (eg split image rangefinder, microprism, digitally zooming into the picture.) Generally, focusing is easier when the depth of field is shallow but I admit that sometimes even then, my eyes might struggle a bit once in a while.

 

[The Snark]

@dragonblade71 I've figured out what the photographer was referring to. The cheaper lenses are not precision convex. Thus the focus area is ovate and the center of the focal distance won't be precisely predictable. He also went into lens astigmatism and lost me.

 

[Ashtralana]

My phone isn't the best at taking pictures so I will send what I have. Trying to figure out if this is a male or female jumping spider. Also what kind of jumping spider is it?

 

[Nicole C G]

My phone isn't the best at taking pictures so I will send what I have. Trying to figure out if this is a male or female jumping spider. Also what kind of jumping spider is it?

Looks like a female Habronattus carolinensis. (But Habronattus females can be tricky.) Photo of underside is needed if you’re wanting to confirm maturity.

 

[Ashtralana]

Looks like a female Habronattus carolinensis. (But Habronattus females can be tricky.) Photo of underside is needed if you’re wanting to confirm maturity.

I have a pic of the underside but it's blurry. She mostly stays on the twig or at top so it's hard to get a pic of her underside.

 

[Nicole C G]

I have a pic of the underside but it's blurry. She mostly stays on the twig or at top so it's hard to get a pic of her underside.

From what I can tell it’s an adult female.

 

[Ashtralana]

From what I can tell it’s an adult female. View attachment 420351

Thank You

From what I can tell it’s an adult female. View attachment 420351

Looks like a female Habronattus carolinensis. (But Habronattus females can be tricky.) Photo of underside is needed if you’re wanting to confirm maturity.

I have a better picture of Camo underside.

 

[Nicole C G]

Just want to add that I would prefer this not become a picture thread, rather a discussion about identifiable photos and macro photography of jumpers in general. It’s okay to post photos you want identified too.

 

[bhowdy]

I know that this is an older thread topic, but it still has excellent information and advice. I photograph my jumpers with 1,000s of dollars in camera gear. The discussion about depth of field is a real issue. I tried a clip-on lens on my cell phone to see what could be done. I was not disappointed with the results. This macro cell phone adapter is sold on Amazon for $39.99.
Amazon.com: Xenvo Pro Lens Kit for iPhone and Android, Macro and Wide Angle Lens with LED Light and Travel Case Black : Cell Phones & Accessories

The photo (attached) was taken with my Canon R5 camera, a Canon RF 100mmm macro lens using a GoDox camera flash and a Beetle Flash Diffuser.