David is a Brisbane based photographer offering portrait, landscape and commercial photographic services.

These pictures are from David's personal gallery - he is available for hire at his Professional Photography site.

Interested in Stock Photos?

Some of these photos are available as stock photos. Contact David if you would like to discuss rates and terms.

Photo Tags

• 400d
• Australia
• Canon
• Canon EF 100mm F/2.8 Macro USM
• Cedar Creek
• Jumping Spider
• Queensland
• Spider
• Macro

Comments

• Panorama Paul said:
  Wow... that's super-sharp David! I checked this one out in large and I am amazed at the amount of detail that you've captured here!! Heh heh... you've may actually have captured too much detail... I noticed some dust-specs too. Did you consider cloning those out?
• David de Groot said:
  I noticed the dust too, but didn't think to clone it out. Ah, the wall is dusty, what can I say :)
• Panorama Paul said:
  Okay, but it actually looks like the dust is on a pane of glass that's between your camera and the spider... oh never mind... I'm just too critical for my own good sometimes... :)
• Clearskies Images said:
  Nice work David, apart from the dust spots!
  Macro is very well done!
• David de Groot said:
  Well it's on a glazed white tile, thus the weirdness with the dust. I may fix it and reupload yet.
  Not too bad considering he didn't want to pose for very long and I had to chase him over the wall. (photo rotated from the original)
• David de Groot said:
  Ok, I've cleaned up most of the really bad dust specs now.
• Panorama Paul said:
  Heh heh... thanks David... :)
• petepothole said:
  Scary David but a great shot! Details brilliant!
• teejaybee said:
  Cool shot (love the shadow) - I never clone out dust if it's that bad it's time to retry
  Have you tried focus stacking yet? I really wanna try it...
• David de Groot said:
  Can't be that scary, he was only a few mm big!
  I didn't think it was that bad, just a few specs in the shadow, but because it's a glazed tile, the dust sat above the shadow and looked a bit odd if you really stared at it.
  As for focus stacking, I've tried it a couple of times - works best if your subject is dead and not moving :)
• seychelles88 said:
  I love the details! Excellent photo!
• David de Groot said:
  Thanks :)
• ronnietan15 said:
  wow its almost see-through! do you use AF?
• David de Groot said:
  Nope, manually focused at the minimum focal distance to get 1:1.
• flash of light said:
  Don't like the sound of this one! How far do they jump? Looks too shirt in the leg dept to go far, but I suppose eight legs are better than two.
• David de Groot said:
  Ah they only jump 10cm or so and they're very very small (3 or 4 mm long including the legs).
• The Sage of Shadowdale said:
  Nice work. Impressive focusing, although I guess you have just enough depth from the aperture to help in that department - I'm useless at manual focus (used to be much better with the split screen viewfinders, but back then my eyes were heaps better too; I'll blame the computers & all that reading. Optometrist once told me it was commonly accepted in the industry that all that continual close up focusing (with your eyes) ruins your long distance vision; makes sense I guess).
  I was going to ask you about your lighting for this one but then I noticed your description. ;-) Do you like the Vivitar?
• David de Groot said:
  Yeah f/11 almost gives enough depth of field without sacrificing sharpness and making the lighting possible too.
  The Vivitar is a nice cheap flash, a bink clunky and the minimum power level of 1/16th is a bit much at times, but for the price one can't argue too much.
  The SB-26 is a better unit by far, and if you're lucky you can pick one up relatively cheaply.
• The Sage of Shadowdale said:
  could you gel the vivitar with neutral to drop it down another stop or two?
• David de Groot said:
  Yep, and I've done that before. Just a bit of a hassle finding the nd filters, etc when you need them. ;-)
• Garry' said:
  Ups that's something different David. Impressive what you did here, using off camera flash combined with a macro shot of a living creature...that is truly something special. Congrats
• David de Groot said:
  Thanks Garry, it turned out pretty well really, even if it was a little fiddly to set up.
• Brodie Foster said:
  Hi David, I'm an admin for a group called Jumping Spiders of Queensland, and we'd love to have this (and any others) added to the group!
  I must say I love how you've lit it like a real studio portrait :)