Jumping spider on autumn leaf

[Gerrit]

Hi,

in the midst of september, early in the morning, i found this little jumping spider. The leaf it sits on has been rotting for a while and the surface looks like its autumn already, therefore the title. I could not find the exact name of the spider on the net.

I fixed the leaf with a clamp, but that was not sufficient to stabilise the subject, so i had to chose ISO 400 and 1/25 sec due to the windy weather. Stopping down to 4 or 5.6 was necessary to overcome softness and at least some of the chromatic abberation of the lens. Each image has been converted with ACR with no luminance noise reduction and reduced contrast.

The image is a stack of 10 single exposures combined in Zerene Stacker with the PMax Method. I did some levels and curves adjustments in photoshop. As you see in the 100% crop, image noise is very present on the pixel-level, due to ISO 400, excessive use of Live-View and the stacking algorithm. But that won't be an issue on prints i think, maybe it would just look more "analogue" and "organic". I hate noise reduction.



100% crop:


View from above:


Thanks for your comments!

[rjlittlefield]

This is very nicely done!

I really like the use of completely natural light, with the sky and horizon showing as reflection in the spider's eyes. I think your choice of ISO 400 and f/5.6 was perfect.

I do not find the pixel noise objectionable. It looks a lot like grain in a fast color film. If you did want to reduce that, you might consider retouching from a single background frame or do the usual trick of combining PMax and DMap outputs using retouching. Those techniques do not produce the "plastic" appearance that noise-reduction software so often gives (and which I hate also).

--Rik

[Gerrit]

Thanks, Rik! I will try the retouching tools in ZS.

I forgot to mention that i used an EOS 50d and the El-Nikkor 50mm 2.8 mounted in reverse on an old Asahi-Pentax Bellows. I dont remember the extension, maybe about 10 cm.

Beside the technical details....does anyone know what kind of jumping spider this is?

[MiniD3]

Great capture Gerrit,
How you got him to stay there is amazing, I can get close sometimes but if they feel any vibrations, I've lost them
Appreciate the details, I'm still trying to learn here and every bit helps,
Regards,
Gary

[arlon]

I've shot dozens of them but have never gotten anything to stay still for even a second shot. Way to go.