If you don’t like spiders, I apologize. I love spiders – and when I found this very cooperative specimen of Phidippus audax, or Bold Jumping Spider, in my front hall I knew I had my first real opportunity to do some super-macro photography. I was so excited that I ended up spending the better part of two hours up close & personal with this little guy. I ended up with 19 photos of him (or her) and if you can handle a really big spider on your screen, click to see the slideshow.
I have been waiting for an opportunity to use a technique called “reverse lens macro”. It’s also called “poor man’s macro” which may be why it appealed to me. A simple reverse-lens macro setup involves attaching a normal lens to the camera, facing the wrong way – using a specially made (and cheap) adapter. I opted for the more complex “reversed-coupled-lenses” version. This involves attaching one lens (usually a prime lens) to the front of another lens (usually a zoom). The lenses are attached “front to front” with another special adapter and then the zoom is attached to the camera in the normal way. While the photo above shows my new 50mm f/1.4D lens attached to my 70-300mm zoom, the spider was shot with the 50mm f/1.8D lens I had at the time.
