Waiting for Prey

[Arun Acharjee]

It was just beside the country road leading towards ploughing field. The little spines of the twig attracts me and I just tried to frame the habitat with one of the habitants there.
Id: Stretch Spider (Tetragnatha sp.)

EXIF Info:

Camera: Nikon D7000
Lens: Nikon 105mm Macro VR
ISO: 400
Aperture: f/8
Shutter Speed: 1/500s
Handheld, Edited, Cropped, No flash

Thanks for viewing.

[Mrudul Godbole]

I liked the way you have framed with the white hair (or I think they are called trichomes) in the composition. I am not sure, but the spider does not seem to be sharp. Or maybe the white hair are taking the attention away from it. Please do check the AF point. Overall nicely captured. Thanks for sharing.

[Abhishek Jamalabad]

Beautiful scene. The backlight is just right. Kudos!

[Arun Acharjee]

I liked the way you have framed with the white hair (or I think they are called trichomes) in the composition. I am not sure, but the spider does not seem to be sharp. Or maybe the white hair are taking the attention away from it. Please do check the AF point. Overall nicely captured. Thanks for sharing.

Thank you Mrudul ji for your complements. Generally, I use af-a(auto) mode. I noticed that, for some certain distances and identical illumination, the focus system uses to come to a state can be called 'lock' while pressing the shutter release buttom halfway. Then, I move myself slightly according to the necessity to ensure the desired focus point on the subject. Of course, many times there are failures for expected shots due to body vibration, breathing, fatigueness, wind, subject movements etc. There may be little issue with the focusing in this image and the white hairs make it large. Completely agree with you about the distraction made by those white hairs.

[Arun Acharjee]

Beautiful scene. The backlight is just right. Kudos!

Thank you so much Abhishek da.

[Mrudul Godbole]

Thank you Mrudul ji for your complements. Generally, I use af-a(auto) mode. I noticed that, for some certain distances and identical illumination, the focus system uses to come to a state can be called 'lock' while pressing the shutter release buttom halfway. Then, I move myself slightly according to the necessity to ensure the desired focus point on the subject. Of course, many times there are failures for expected shots due to body vibration, breathing, fatigueness, wind, subject movements etc. There may be little issue with the focusing in this image and the white hairs make it large. Completely agree with you about the distraction made by those white hairs.

Auto AF focus (half pressing shutter bottom) normally locks properly. Maybe you could have tried using a further narrower aperture. That would have helped in getting more details in the spider.

[Arun Acharjee]

Auto AF focus (half pressing shutter bottom) normally locks properly. Maybe you could have tried using a further narrower aperture. That would have helped in getting more details in the spider.

Hello Mrudul ji. Thank you for your advice. Actually, in D7000 there are 3 types of autofocus system namely 1. Af-a(auto) 2. Af-s(single) and 3.Af-c(continuous). In Af-a mode focus locks for a certain conditions(it is actually a combination of Af-s and Af-c as far as I know). In Af-s mode focus remains locked and in the Af-c mode the focus generally behaves like moving continuously(may it be similar to 'servo' in canon).
Sorry to say that there is not any image with narrower aperture.
I would be thankful if you kindly inform me if there is anything wrong information regarding the focusing technique in Nikon D7000. Once, at the very first of my buying the camera, this focusing technique was a real issue for me.

[Arun Acharjee]

This image is taken almost at the same time. The spider may be a bit more in focus here.
EXIF Info:
ISO: 400
Aperture: f/8
Shutter speed: 800

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Arun,
My advice to you would be to stick to manual focus in macro situations. At times slight movement and the AF can lock into something else. Later you will regret. I don't shoot a lot of macro. I do it for my documentaries. So I do tripod and it is generally a very slow process. And I prefer to use the liveview to get the correct focus and click. If you don't get critical focus then you can't print it.

I like your frame. How much of a crop is it? Try sticking to showing some environment in the shots as in this case. And keep on experimenting. I am liking it.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Arun Acharjee]

Arun,
My advice to you would be to stick to manual focus in macro situations. At times slight movement and the AF can lock into something else. Later you will regret. I don't shoot a lot of macro. I do it for my documentaries. So I do tripod and it is generally a very slow process. And I prefer to use the liveview to get the correct focus and click. If you don't get critical focus then you can't print it.

I like your frame. How much of a crop is it? Try sticking to showing some environment in the shots as in this case. And keep on experimenting. I am liking it.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

Hello Sabyasachi da. Thank you so much for your opinions. This image is about 50% of the original one.

*AF vs MF as I experienced

I generally prefer auto focus but many times I works with manual focus too. I also came across many articles preferring manual focus over auto focus in case of macro photography. I don't know why all these techniques are not works well with me in most cases. Probably the reasons are
1. Rapid and haphazard subject movements which completely makes my skill dull while working with mf as I have to move accordingly and a very little wrong movement results in bad images.
2. To find quickly the subject af does a great job.

I also use manual focus when the subject as well as its host is still. They are really nice experiences. Af, with higher shutter speed, often helps me record a moving subject quickly with close to desire.

*VF vs LCD as I experienced

Live view mode is really really burdensome for moving subjects and to a considerable extent for non-moving ones. Reasons are-
1. Broad daylight
2. Using this technique without tripod has really an issue for stability/ camera shake. Sometimes, when I record video I have to press the shutter release buttom again and again to keep the subject in focus, and, truly spoken, the broad daylight completely fools my sight.

*Cropped frame vs Full Frame

I am very respectful to your opinion regarding this matter. But, truly spoken, I use to crop images to acquire better depth of field in the final images after post processing. Even f/20/22 aperture is not enough in maximum cases. Another reason is(not so significant) that due to the limited focus point of the camera sometimes subjects are placed not in desired point. Another thing is that in challenging lighting condition only the central focus point works well in af mode. In that case, if the other conditions are okey I switch to mf.

* I agree with that for still subjects there is perhaps no alternative of the combination of a sturdy tripod, MF and Live view for macro photography.

Eagerly waiting for you kind opinions regarding all these.
Thank you.