Female Jumping Spider (on Chrysocolla-encrusted Mixite)

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Beatsy
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Joined: Fri Jul 05, 2013 3:10 am
Location: Malvern, UK

Female Jumping Spider (on Chrysocolla-encrusted Mixite)

Post by Beatsy »

A 600-image PMax stack with one slab of retouch (front legs to top edge of head). Step size 12 microns, shooting extra fine jpegs. The subject was composed (twice) to avoid stacking issues as far as possible and that worked quite well. Which is good, as I wanted to stereo this one from the outset - and I don't like retouching stereos much...

Sony A7rii running full-frame with a 5x Mitty @ 5x (on some old generic 200/3.5 M42 prime). Standard double diffusion with diffuser dome and individually diffused lights (1 x Janso style and 2 x Schott Halogen goosenecks). A couple of heavily diffused and warm-filtered LED cube lights were carefully positioned (aka precariously balanced) off to the left to make the background glow *appear* to be casting light on the spider. They also provide catchlights in the eyes on that side of the head. The apparent "light" in the top left corner is just increased exposure (dodging) of the background in Affinity photo. I couldn't get this to look *quite* right in stereo; there was always something a bit odd-looking but I couldn't see what, so I left the original background(s) for the headache-inducing pic. The background is the metallic matt face of an old watch, angled and quite close behind. It's very versatile and can vary the mood of a background lots, just by moving and tilting.
spidey pmn export.jpg
spidey stereo pmn-export.jpg

Sumguy01
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Location: Ketchikan Alaska USA

Re: Female Jumping Spider (on Chrysocolla-encrusted Mixite)

Post by Sumguy01 »

=D> Very nice.
Thanks for sharing.

leonardturner
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Location: Atlanta, GA, USA

Re: Female Jumping Spider (on Chrysocolla-encrusted Mixite)

Post by leonardturner »

A superb image from what sounds like a monumental effort. The stereo works strikingly well for me. Thanks, too, for providing all the info.

Leonard

Ray Jade
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Joined: Sun Nov 05, 2017 11:58 am
Location: UK

Re: Female Jumping Spider (on Chrysocolla-encrusted Mixite)

Post by Ray Jade »

Lovely image; looks like the same as I found and snapped in my kitchen at the weekend. I popped it in a handy petridish (every kitchen should have some) and it stayed quite still looking at its own reflection at least until it jumped on to the lens. My efforts are not in the same league and I'm also not expert on spiders but likely a downy jumper (Sitticus pubescens).
...individually diffused lights (1 x Janso style and 2 x Schott Halogen goosenecks).
Out of interest, how are you diffusing the goosenecks? I've just started experimenting with them but not found anything I happy with - mostly about stability but also concerned about absorption fire risk from with a higher output source.

Beatsy
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Joined: Fri Jul 05, 2013 3:10 am
Location: Malvern, UK

Re: Female Jumping Spider (on Chrysocolla-encrusted Mixite)

Post by Beatsy »

Ray Jade wrote:
Wed Jul 01, 2020 1:02 pm
...Out of interest, how are you diffusing the goosenecks? I've just started experimenting with them but not found anything I happy with - mostly about stability but also concerned about absorption fire risk from with a higher output source.
Sorry for the delayed reply. Looks like my notifications got switched off. Here's a slightly altered version of a recent Facebore post I did. Should answer the question. If you have any followups, might be worth starting a new thread in techniques with a link to this one. Ta.

This pic shows my basic, no-frills lighting setup that I use by default. A good "working" diffuse light for pretty much any kind of subject. The fibre-optic halogen lights are adjusted to alter light direction, shading and diffusion levels overall. The tiniest movement of the spot(s) can change the entire character of a scene. The outer cut-up hemisphere is (was) a cheap dome diffuser for a studio strobe. The Schott lamps are bounced off the inside to avoid the light loss of shining the lamps through. If I need more light, or I want to finesse the way the light is bounced back, I put foil-backed flocking on the outside of the dome to selectively bounce extra light back in. I chose a fairly translucent material rather than opaque to give this extra bit of "free" lighting control. Plus, I can still shine lights through if I want - which I do with Janso and flat-panel lamps. The foil usually covers all of the illuminated parts, but sometimes I'll just cover one small spot to bring back a subtle hint of specular reflection in a feature (this only works without the inner diffuser in place). This bounced and diffused (scattered) light illuminates the inner diffuser or ping-pong ball indirectly but the goosenecks can be pointed to simultaneously "graze" the ball with a patch of light to bring back stronger specular reflections if needed. The ball shown has two holes in it; a small one facing the objective (to image the specimen through) and a larger one in the bottom (for the specimen mount/pin to come up through). The back half is painted black inside and out but different backgrounds can be temporarily fixed inside as required (even photographs). Accent lighting (fibre optic spots, rim lighting and/or background reflective objects) require a different, more open ping-pong ball to be used instead. I have several versions...

Diffusion comes from 3 sources here. First, it's provided internally by the Schott Halogen supply (makes the beams spread out and scatter more, some control of spread - including none). The outer dome provides tuneable diffusion and spreading of the source for more even fill light (size and position of the spots bounced off the inside affect the "size" of the source from the subject's viewpoint. Bigger=more diffuse fill). The ping-pong ball provides more overall scatter and some bounced fill light internally. All this modified by how the inside of a ball is "decorated" or flocked.
diffuse-pmn1-exp.jpg
Just for context (above shot is a bit "tight"), this is what I now call my "permanent rig" with just the single dome diffuser attached. It's not really permanent as I regularly change big chunks (mostly mounted on that rail down the side), but it's as close to permanent as anything gets with my gear 😂 No ping pong ball on this setup, but still gives good enough lighting for routine record-stacks and postings etc.
diffuse-pmn2-exp.jpg
At the end of the day, this isn't really much more sophisticated than shining the light over the rim of a styrofoam cup with holes in. But it's easier to adjust and repeat things. Hope that helps

Ray Jade
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Joined: Sun Nov 05, 2017 11:58 am
Location: UK

Re: Female Jumping Spider (on Chrysocolla-encrusted Mixite)

Post by Ray Jade »

Publicly - since I'd only done so in a PM - thanks for coming back and sharing in detail and with photos. Much appreciated. =D>
Beatsy wrote:
Sat Jul 04, 2020 12:55 pm

... Here's a slightly altered version of a recent Facebore post I did. Should answer the question. If you have any followups, might be worth starting a new thread in techniques with a link to this one. Ta.
I will - eventually - open another thread as this is provoking a lot of thoughts and quite a few follow up questions in several different directions.

Thanks again

Geopressure
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Re: Female Jumping Spider (on Chrysocolla-encrusted Mixite)

Post by Geopressure »

Great image and I love the spider's contrast with the Chrysocolla! Also enjoyed your lighting description.
Brad

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