Attempted spider SP

I have been thinking about the possibility of an SP in a spiders eyes since I accidentally achieved an SP in the green crested lizards eye some time ago. I spent some time thinking about the circumstances that would make it happen.

The main requirement is that I have to be lit up, otherwise I just appear as a silhouette in the eye. There are a couple of ways to achieve this:

Have the sun positioned in front, back lighting the spider. A couple of problems with this, firstly I would have to use flash, which would spoil the SP and secondly, it could take years to find a cooperative spider with the sun in the right place.

The second and most practical way, is to have a remote flash directed on me and shoot the spider in natural light. But, for this shot I needed an assistant. So, this was my main planned shot for yesterday, with Esta joining me for a safari. Unfortunately it was cloudy and the only tiny little jumper was not willing to cooperate. Planned blips rarely go to plan, we all know that much.

For some unknown reason, I brought the flash and remote kit with me again today. I hadn't even switched on the camera and BINGO, there in front of me was the biggest jumper you have ever seen, sitting at eye level on the first bush and with the sun behind me. This would have to be a one handed shot while holding the flash with my left, but it had to be worth a go, so I quickly set up the monopod and the flash, remembering to switch everything on!

Normally this spider is very shy, but this one really wanted to play. "This was going to be easy" I thought - well I thought wrong. It was a bit of a juggling act, but I soon figured out a method: pre-focus and then pick up the flash, tilting the monopod in and out to focus.

As I moved in close on those huge eyes, just about to fire when the spider disappeared. I found it sitting on my lens. I chased it onto my hand and it ran up my arm. I managed to stop its progress with the flash gun, which it mounted, and manipulated the arachnid back onto the leaf.

Take 2 and for that matter, take 3, 4 and 5 were all variations on the same theme. This spider was not shy at all, I think it wanted to come home with me. At one point it jumped onto my face and ran up to my head. I thought it was all over, but found it on my shoulder, so we were able to continue.

In the end I had to shoot from further back. Such a pity because I could have filled 1200 pixels with these huge eyes.

As you can plainly see, the shot did not come off, but lessons were learned. First lesson, with that powerful light, I needed to have the lens hood fitted, I had to do major PS work to combat the flare. Secondly, I need to superglue the spider. Lastly, without an assistant, I am going to have to make a special light for the job. I was about to design a twin light anyway, so I will 'design in' this extra feature.

I will be coming back to this one, for sure.

Just kidding about the superglue :)

Dave