The Bearded beauty

[Prajwal J Ullal]

ID: Portia (Jumping spider)

Spotted this beauty in a low lying bushes along the Nagla trail. Initially I got confused looking at it but later realized its some form of an interesting Jumping spider and had really peculiar beard type features on the front and feathery legs. It was a bit cooperative to give me some decent frames.

EXIF:
Canon 550D
Canon 100mm macro
F/13
Shutterspeed 1/125
ISO 400
Handheld, External flash fired

Location: Nagla trail, Mumbai

[Mrudul Godbole]

Nice sighting. Good eye contact. A slight higher shutter speed would have been good. I think the AF point locked on the leaf? Please check. Thanks for sharing.

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Were you using autofocus? I agree with Mrudul that the focus seems to be locked ahead of the spider. Also, the highlight on the left at the right bottom due to the flash takes away the attention from the spider. Thanks for sharing.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Prajwal J Ullal]

I have almost stopped using Auto focus due to inaccuracy, occasionally faced at close range, so have been taking in Manual focus, but sometimes with foggy spectacles, due to the humidity and body heat, I tend to take a lucky guess on the focusing. Live view mode without tripod and tricky forest lighting, becomes almost impossible to check the focusing. May be I need to practice out on Live view mode, zoomed, focusing a bit more, with the macro lens and external flash