By Brett Meara.
I often travel to the local Botanical Gardens as I find it provides a multitude of opportunities for macro photography. It is almost like attending a variety of climate types at once. I found this guy half way through a meal so luckily she/he wasn’t in the mood to be moving around too much. I used off-camera flash and focused on its eyes, using f/8 on my lens as this generally gives me the sharpest results and a reasonable depth of field. I added a vignette and did some layers adjustments and sharpening in Photoshop.
Canon 7D; Tokina 100mm f2.8 macro lens
Don’s response
Like portrait photographers, experienced macro shooters have a keen appreciation for a good backdrop. As in this example from Brett Meara, the backdrop should be visually appealing but not distracting from the central subject.
This alert looking little chap is a member of the familySalticidae (the jumping spiders).
According to the Australian Museum website, ‘Jumping spiders are diurnal and on sunny days they can usually be found on all types of vegetation. They are found in a variety of habitats – which makes them an ideal macro subject, namely common and likely to be active when lighting conditions are good.
