The making of the Dangling Spider

Freshly spurred on by a recent afternoon spent taking pictures of Spiders with other members of our local camera club I wanted to try and take things up a notch.  I had in mind a macro picture of a Spider dangling from a single gossamer thread against an all black backdrop, looking like it had descended at night and was only lit by the moon.

Hmm, ok where to start! I managed to find a Spider that would do the job, one of those fat ones in the garden with a white cross on its back, they seem to make a web almost on demand and with a small stick you an carefully catch the web and lift it, and the Spider into the air.

But how to light it (remember its at night) , how to focus on it (its macro so shallow DOF) and how to freeze it so it is sharp when it will be moving, as may its appendages be.

I came up with a solution, and made a video showing how it was done, its only a couple of minutes long and I hope you like it (literally "like" it :-) ).

One of the resulting images

You can view more images here just search on "spider"

The Photo Trigger was supplied by High Speed Photography UK and the "spare pair of hands" are from Amazon, amazing value at less than £5 each, I use them loads.

Cheers Peter.