Somewhat more morbid than the Honey Traps I've recently used.

[dpSparhawk]

Ok, I may have gone a little far here ahem!

Once again, our conservatory had visitors. Ok hands up we had about 4 or 5 Hovers flying about in there. I could have captured them all and let them go (which is generally what I do) however I had a rather morbid idea this time. Knowing outside there was a rather sizeable Diadem Orb Weaving Spider in the garden, I popped out and captured it. I also captured one of the hovers and err. well, introduced them to each other in a beaker. The inevitable happened.

Here's a sequence of images.

The Big Gal





This shot shows the hover fly having flipped onto its back attempting to escape. It is alive at this point. The spider is rearing up.



A struggle ensues.



The obvious victor, the spider sinks its jaws into the face of the hover and proceeds to feed.






[B]This shot is taken with 3 extension tubes on the 100L



And this last image I'll admit is even more morbid. The spider actually twisted the head off the hover but you can see that the internal food/wind pipe is still intact. urrghh!!

[Welsh Pete]

Amazing capture. Well done

[rIKmAN]

[dpSparhawk]

Cheers guys

[supraman54]

You're right mate..morbid but strangely fascinating.. great job!

[Bilbo_baggin]

Brilliant series Ian - the detail picked up by your lighting is top notch.

Paul.

[Spike2k1]

those pictures are amazing!!

what did you use for the whole setup?

[chesser]

Stunning Ian

[Nuvoix]

Utterly amazing. thank you. Dont think ive ever seen anything as graphically detailed as that ever.

[supraman54]

I'm sure us aspiring macro-photographers would really appreciate some detail on how you set it up so the results look as if they were produced in a studio.. if you get time of course..
cheers

supe

[cybollox]

cut its head off to shit down its neck, classic, your showing off now with that new setup, stop it

[Soulassassin]

Great pictures you kidnap/murderer

[dpSparhawk]

hehehe, Thanks everyone for your replies . glad you like them. Makes me feel good as well because over at Talk Photography, it seems there are a lot of Insect activists over there who feel I have stepped well over the line. LOL. I just helped a spider get a meal!

As for the setup, it's no different to anything else I do however the location was different. Normally I'm outside so have different ambient lighting, different background colours etc.

These ones were taken in our conservatory which as we have the poly-carbonate roof, acts like a big light box. I did however also use my flash diffused with a softbox. It's a rather cumbersome setup as the softbox is quite large. A Lastolite Ezybox Speed-lite - See image here - http://www.wexphotographic.com/webco...43/1521595.jpg

Having placed the spider and hover on a sheet of white a4 paper (folded to A5) on our dining table (appropriate), I deliberately over-compensated the flash as it would have auto powered down on ETTL due to the white background. This allowed for a nice bright background and as close to properly exposed subject as possible. Even though the lighting was really good in the conservatory, you can't get good DoF with a small aperture in macro without upping the ISO to 800+. I left mine at 200 and used the flash.

I didn't have the camera on a tripod, preferring to hand hold however as I used the lens hood, I was able to rest the end of the lens on the table for a few of the shots.

Hope this is useful

[cybollox]

just had a look over at Tp thread, they are a bit sensitive over there aren't they mate, if its anything like my conny-red hot when its sunny, then the poor buggers die in there anyway and the spiders mop them up, free meal with a bit of waiting, were as you just hurried the process a little. Rather like feeding a tarantula crickets. Lol at that softbox mate its massive

[DejaVu]

Nature at it's best. Fantastic shots and captured perfectly.

One less Hover fly to worry about.
If there was no spiders, I'm certain we'd be overrun with insects.

Don't worry about the do'gooders over there, they just do not understand the need for such violence in nature.
No-one bats an eye-lid when you feed a snake a frozen mouse (that'd make for some incredible shots too!!)

[dpSparhawk]

Thanks for the support guys. Appreciated. I've apologised mildly over there albeit I did throw a little bit of a sarcastic comment in about sated spiders and hover communities bouncing back after their loss LOL

Again thanks for the compliments on the photos.

[supraman54]

hehehe, Thanks everyone for your replies . glad you like them. Makes me feel good as well because over at Talk Photography, it seems there are a lot of Insect activists over there who feel I have stepped well over the line. LOL. I just helped a spider get a meal!

As for the setup, it's no different to anything else I do however the location was different. Normally I'm outside so have different ambient lighting, different background colours etc.

These ones were taken in our conservatory which as we have the poly-carbonate roof, acts like a big light box. I did however also use my flash diffused with a softbox. It's a rather cumbersome setup as the softbox is quite large. A Lastolite Ezybox Speed-lite - See image here - http://www.wexphotographic.com/webco...43/1521595.jpg

Having placed the spider and hover on a sheet of white a4 paper (folded to A5) on our dining table (appropriate), I deliberately over-compensated the flash as it would have auto powered down on ETTL due to the white background. This allowed for a nice bright background and as close to properly exposed subject as possible. Even though the lighting was really good in the conservatory, you can't get good DoF with a small aperture in macro without upping the ISO to 800+. I left mine at 200 and used the flash.

I didn't have the camera on a tripod, preferring to hand hold however as I used the lens hood, I was able to rest the end of the lens on the table for a few of the shots.

Hope this is useful

Many thanks for the info on your setup mate.. cheers

supe

[dpSparhawk]

Sorry that should have said, you can't get good DoF with a wide open aperture which would allow more light in and if you use a smaller aperture, the images are still too dark irrespective of ambient light unless you up the ISO, so used my regular set up of F11, 1/200th and ISO 200 with diffused flash.

[darkstar]

Just stunning mate I envy your talent ... It's people like you on here made me take up macro

[dpSparhawk]

Cheers dude