spiderling shed skin - EXTREME close-up :)

Lostkat

Arachnobaron
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Well after sucessfully managing to delete this post once already, I'm going to have another go without pressing anymore stupid keys :)

Anyway... my Brachypelma emilia moulted last Saturday, and I found that I could get a pretty good close up of the skin by taking a photo of my hand lens focused on the skin. I don't think it's big enough to be able to sex her yet, but I was interested what you guys thought. I thought I could see a little tuck between the book lungs, but that's probably wishful thinking :)



I thought I also ought to introduce you all to the little minx who shed this skin; Jezabel (she's a she until proven otherwise!). So, here's some before, during and after shots of her. She's grown SO much!

Before. 3cm leg span


During. I came home to find her like this on Saturday night after work. I'd had a really bad day, so this was one brilliant pick-up.


About 1/2 hour ago, stomping around on my hand. Approximately 4cm legspan - it's hard to tell because she never stops moving! That abdomen needs some fresh cricket juice to fill it up though :)




p.s. Hi I'm new by the way. My name's Kate and I'm from the UK. You might have already met my boyfriend Lopez who is responsible for my keen interest in tarantulas. Damn him! :) Jezabel is my first T, but I have an A. geniculata arriving early next week!
 

Lostkat

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It's a Fujifilm Finepix A204. Just a point and shoot digicam but I am really pleased with the pics that it's churning out. I also have a SLR which I will use to take some BIIIIG macro shots with eventually. Unfortunately it's at home, and I'm away at uni so I can't get to it at the moment!
 

Immortal_sin

Arachnotemptress
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Hi Kate,
welcome! Looks like your B emilia is about 1 instar ahead of mine. I can't tell the gender from the pics though.
I also have a Jezebel, but it's an M mesomelas.
 

Imegnixs_Cinder

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Lostkat said:
and I found that I could get a pretty good close up of the skin by taking a photo of my hand lens focused on the skin.
Bit off topic I know, but can I please ask what you mean by that? I have a Finepix S5000 and I can't get pics that close up which I really want to do for a spider skin picture Im trying to get help with on another thread.
 

brachymad

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You just put a hand lens between the camera and the subject if you move the hand lens into the right position you get a bigger picture .

This is an old post that you resurected .But I find it particularly interesting . Kate is that the Jezabel that I now know
 

cacoseraph

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Imegnixs_Cinder said:
ok maybe this is a really silly question, but what is a hand lens please?
a magnifying glass?

that is how i take pics of little things, digicam thru a magnifying glass. it's easier to get crap pictures, but honestly you can't beat the price :)

nice to see you, btw :)
 

Imegnixs_Cinder

Arachnoknight
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Thanks cacoseraph :)
I might have to try that because taking pics of my spiders skin has proven a nightmare even with a 22x zoom, it just gets so close then goes really blurry lol.
 

GabooN

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Cinder, the further you zoom your camera (enlarging the subject) the longer the minimum range required to get proper focus. Also is the 22x zoom optical or partially digital?

I also found it hard to get pics of things close up, I can get decent ones of my snakes, but with a sling it just wasnt enough detail for me, I went out and got some macro lense filters, a set of 2,3,4's, although you need to have a camera that will allow such attachments.
 

Imegnixs_Cinder

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My camera is a 10x optical zoom and 2.2 digital. I just bought a set of macro lenses off Ebay for it pretty cheaply, thankfully it did come with the adaptor for that so heres hoping I can get some close up pics soon! :)
Thanks.
 

Joe1968

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cute lil gal you got there, welcome to the Boards Kate.



p.s. ooops I just realized this was an old thread, oh well, welcome anyways.
 
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GabooN

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there you go :p what size are the filters? i needed to get 58mm to fit my lense

My camera is 3 mp but 'only' 2.6 effective mp's. Its a Canon Pro90 IS, their first to have the 10x optical zoom lense :p, used to be my dads big rig until the the Digital Rebels came out, so he gave it to me :) I've only recently started delving into the more advanced features, i love it, though i wish i could buy the Digital SLR rebel, but i dont have the money for that right now haha

*edit* btw, regarding the macro lenses, this is what i was able to conjure up my first time fidding around with them, Turned out nicely considering the T was on a dark shelf and i couldnt see anything in order to focus until i took the pic with the flash.. trial and error :p
So this is with the lenses, 1 inch sling

and back when i first got him, the best i could do without the lenses, since i couldnt get closer in order to focus

both have been reduced in size but you get the point :)
 
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Imegnixs_Cinder

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ok to be honest most of that went wayyyy over my head, Im not a camera geek by any means of the imagination lol, I don't know what a sling is even!
I do love taking photos tho mainly of wildlife and my T's but mostly for Ebay stuff to be honest.
The lenses I just got tho are 55mm .....Suitable for any Camera 35mm SLR or Digital with either a 55mm lens Adapter or any Lens with a 55mm thread.
Close-up set consists of +1 lens, +2 lens, +4 lens, +10 Macro lens. Grand cost of about £17 inc postage so not too bad!
I think my camera is 3.2mp but 6 million recording pixels whatever that means, Ive taken some nice pics with it.
If you want to see the limits of it tho take a look at the 12 limbs thread the pictures on there were really as close as I could get before it went blurry even with auto focus on :(
 

GabooN

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sorry :p i just pick up on things from my dad, hes always been into photography .. this is what he has http://www.steves-digicams.com/2005_reviews/rebelxt.html
its one of the ones you can change lenses etc. It is also what i would like to get, but would settle for the non XT model, though still too expensive for me :p

What exactly went over your head? I'll explain what i can :p
I got +1, +2 and +4.. mine was about $80 canadian but i got it at Henry's (camera shop) and they are a good brand and come with a hard pouch to carry them in.

I've been trying to use my camera more. I took some photos when i went to the Molson Indy in Toronto, got some pretty good ones too.

But just play around with the lenses, and you should get some decent shots, im no pro at using them, i just kinda put whatever combination of them on and figure out how close it allows me to still be in focus then go from there.
 

Imegnixs_Cinder

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Thats a nice camera, just looked it up on Ebay tho and its about £600 sterling :eek: but 8mp. Im thinking of upgrading mine to the S5500 4mp with 10x optical zoom and a 3.6 digital zoom.
Can I ask, whats a sling? Iv'e been hearing the term loads on this forum and have never heard it before, thought at first something to do with pictures, now I get impression something to do with Tarantulas tanks?
 

GabooN

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oh a sling, is a spiderling, technically it should be written s'ling :p.

Yeah i want to steal my dads camera :p it runs $1300 canadian i beleive, plus he has a couple lenses and every accessory he can get his hands on. the non XT model is $900 or 800, with 6.3 mp, and slightly larger camera body.

For stuff like taking pictures of the spiders, you shouldn't worry about digital zoom, as that just inlarges the picture digitally, like we would on our computers. optical is true zooming :)

as far as getting a new camera goes, www.steves-digicams.com has great reviews, that go into detail, so check it out, go to reviews and then you have to find the catagory the camera falls into for megapixels.
 

brachymad

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I use a canon eos300d for my pics. Now the 350 is out it has got cheaper as has been said . You have got to remember that with digital cameras the image gets twice as big if you times the pixels by 4. So the image you get from say a 4MP camera to a 3MP camera is not much bigger. With a digital SLR the advantage you gain is the lens availability how big you can get the subject is not totaly related to the camera. The pic below was taken with a 100mm macro lens from about 18" away . The locust is about 1/2"

 

Imegnixs_Cinder

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GabooN thanks for clearing that up for me, I thought I was going insane lol.
brachymad that is an AWSOME picture! Im gonna play around with my camera tonight and try and figure out the manual focus and see if that helps at all, will let you know if I get anywhere, otherwise will have to wait for my macro lenses to arrive.
 
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