How I photograph spiders

I'm a spiderfan so would never photograph dead or prone ones out of respect. I photograph them as naturally as possible.

I generally go out at night armed with a torch and the camera and macro lens (currently Olympus E-510 + OM 3.5/50 macro), sometimes with a 25mm tube too, which gives me 1-1 ratio. I then look for them, mostly near bridges and water...set to f11 and 1/4 or 1/16 flash at 1/180 sync with the lens set to its minimum focussing distance of 23cm. I view through the viewfinder and use the torch on the spider to check I'm getting it sharp. I then fire away.

Some spiders dance, some are in web where the wind is swinging them about. Some stay still. Some retreat into mini-caves. Most of my spider photos are of ones that were moving, as their body positions are interesting and different to what you normally see in spider pictures.

According to my research on the web and in my own experience, some spiders are at worst temporarily stunned or disorientated after the series of flashes at such close proximities, leaving them possibly open to predators...but as it's night there are no birds about...leaving me with a fairly clear conscience for immortalising them in photographs. I try to avoid flash for most other animals, and children too.

For every 100 releases I'll have maybe 40 that are sharp, and 20 that I like enough to smooth over on Photoshop and save to library. Maybe 5 of those will get uploaded to the internet.

All my spiders are never bigger than the average fingernail, see here for more (some shot with Canon compact):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/15170132@N05/tags/spider/


For the coming Spring and Summer, I would like to try the f2 on the ZD 50mm for daylight spider shoots.