robmercer

Spider-1

Canon EOS 350D DIGITAL

settings

Aperture f/2.8 ISO 200 Shutter 1/60

upload_date

Sep, 2014

Views

387

Likes

+55

Awards

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Same photographer See all Behind The Lens

Behind The Lens

Location

This photo was taken in my back garden. It was one of the first photo's I took with a second hand 90mm macro lense I part exchanged that afternoon against the kit lense that came with my camera.

Time

It was really late evening, the sun had set and the spider was illuminated with the light from my living room window. I had been looking around for possible macro shots and this was one of the last I could take that day. I

Lighting

I know I've got a lot to learn to improve my photography. Some of the images on here are mind blowing. The best ones always have great light which adds another dimension to what could have been an ordinary photo. I'll keep trying to improve. This photo was before I had the equipment to set the flash up off camera or anything like that as I'd only just started.

Equipment

Canon 350d, tamron 90mm 2.8 lense. 430ex speedlight and tripod. Nothing else.

Inspiration

I had just bought the lense that afternoon and it was the first 'good' lense I owned. I was trying to take a photo that I hadn't ever been able to take before. Macro images always amazed me and I wanted to see if I could take a photo that could come close to others I had seen. I've still got that lense and it really opened up another world of photography I had never been able to properly get into beforehand.

Editing

The only post-processing was to crop slightly tighter and reduce exposure slightly. Nothing else was altered.

In my camera bag

Since taking this picture I've been slowly upgrading on my limited budget! Body is now a Canon 50d. I've just had a 24-105mm L lense as an upgrade for my general photography. For sport and nature I use a tamron sp 70-300mm lense that was my first lense with stabilisation. Macro shots with a Tamron 90mm 2.8. And the standard 50mm 1.8 canon. I've just had some cokin filters as a present which I'm still waiting to use. I've a 430ex speedlight and a tripod I picked up at a bootfair.

Feedback

I protected the Web from the wind to reduce movement and the tripod was essential. After the first few shots failed I started focusing manuallying and then zooming in on my screen to check if I needed to change the focus. This was taken when I had only just started taking photos and I used the macro setting on my camera, alot of advice says don't do this but it can give good results! You can then build the experience to use the manual settings later. Shooting in RAW format makes a massive difference in quality and gives you the ability to make more adjustments on the computer if needed - the focusing is something you can never alter so get that right!

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robmercer

robmercer

Spider-1

Behind The Lens

See more amazing photos, follow robmercer

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