Photographs behind webs?

[jakykong]

Hello,

I hope this is the right forum to ask this... the tarantula photos forum seems to be just for photographs, not so much for questions about them, and the tarantula questions forum seems to be more about the Ts themselves...

Anyway, my new P. murinus spiderling has made himself a loosely webbed den near the corner of my enclosure, and I was hoping I could snap a photo of him before he webs it up too much more.

I can see him quite clearly if I shine a flashlight through one side of that corner and look through the other, but when I tried to use my camera to grab a shot, the web was all that shows up, the attached photo is the best I could get. (It is dark in the room, but with the light on, it wasn't any better.)... you can see his opisthosoma reasonably well, he's facing down where the web gets in the way.

Has anyone had experience trying to photograph a T through webbing?

Thanks!

 

[awolfe]

I shoot spiders a lot and it all has to do with auto focus or manual. I have a canon 40d where you can change everything to manual mode and choose what you want and don't want to be in focus.with aperture value. I don't know what kind of camera do u have?

 

[Formerphobe]

Sometimes a picture through the webbing is all that you can get. I don't have a real camera (or photography skills) so use my cell phone and a flashlight. I frequently take pics with 'indirect' lighting because that's all I have to work with. The photo forum has a lot of threads with professional quality pictures, some with neat lighting tricks. Just keep playing with technique. A lot depends on cooperation of the spider, too. Here's a couple of mine that I got lucky with.

 

[jakykong]

I'm sorry, I totally forgot to mention the type of camera... It's a Sony Cybershot DSC-W530 (if the model matters much). I can set the ISO setting and I think I can set the aperture but in all honesty, I've never had it as anything other than a point-and-shoot...

Formerphobe, nice job on those photos, that's more or less exactly what I was hoping to get, so I guess it's just the 3 P's, then: practice, patience, and prayer (if you're so inclined)...

When you said "indirect" lighting, though, did you mean letting the light bounce off of something else first? I'll give that a try with the leaves behind him, and maybe I can get at least a shadow...

Thanks!

 

[awolfe]

Timing is everthing. You can have the very best camera, but it wont matter if you aren't there when the perfect moment happens

 

[Formerphobe]

When you said "indirect" lighting, though, did you mean letting the light bounce off of something else first?

For me, indirect lighting is however I can get light to shine on or in the general vicinity of the subject, not necessarily coming from the same direction as the viewfinder on my phone... (Guess I need to pick up that Photography for Dummies book so I know how to describe what I'm trying to say...):biggrin:

I also heard someone talking about 'back lighting with a muted light' (or something to that effect.) I covered the flashlight beam with a paper towel and tried taking pics toward the light. This is what I got:

It was different...
Same view with light source above camera and subject instead of opposite side of subject.

 

[jakykong]

Light from behind... that's an interesting idea. I think I'll also try the dimmer flashlight, it seems like the camera is frequently overwhelmed by the brightness in a lot of pics, so that could be why. I guess I'm showing my own lack of photography skills. No better time than the present to learn .