Jumping spiders are perhaps among of the most interesting creatures to photography up close. It is particularly intriguing because only through close-up photographs will you be able to see clearly how beautifully intricate these creatures are, and how furry they actually are! And the most interesting thing is that they are quite cooperative and will pose long enough for you to take their pictures.

This photo was taken with the Pentax D FA 100mm f2.8 WR macro lens on a K-7. The Raynox DCR-250 super macro conversion lens was attached to the 100mm.

Some say conversion lens causes pictures to become less sharp. Maybe I should get an extension tube instead of a conversion lens.

Jumping Spider Macro

Some people can’t stand the sight of certain creatures, centipede for instance. I have no problem with this crawly but I’m nevertheless mindful of its nasty bites. Needless to say, centipedes are not one to play around with like the way you play around with a jumping spider.

How do we take macro pictures of a centipede? I don’t know. I saw this one, about 10cm long, crawling on concrete pavement and took a single shot of it before it scurried away into a crack.

Centipede macro

AntWeb is currently embarking on a massive project — to shoot detailed macro photographs of all known ant species of Planet Earth, all 10,000 of them!

And you know with this kind of project, it’s not going to be a straight-forward macro photography; it’s precision techniques combined with scientific know-how and photo-editing prowess. In short, it’s a painstaking process.

Here is how they do it, briefly: they take dozens of photos of different parts of the ant in different focal planes and stitched them together using a terrific piece of software called Automontage Pro. Want to know more? Read their documentation page.

The third photo is that of a species of ant from Borneo, the place where yours truly comes from.

Dorylus molestus ... Photographer: April Nobile

Polyrhachis etheli ... Photographer: Will Ericson

Bregmatomyrma carnosa ... Photographer: April Nobile

When I decided to buy a macro lens for the K-7 last year, I was torn between the smc Pentax D FA Macro 100mm F2.8 WR and smc Pentax DA 35mm F2.8 Macro Limited. These are two great lenses but unfortunately I can’t afford both. The 100mm is more expensive and new and weather sealed but the 35mm is from the famed Limited series.

I went online to get a feel of which would be the best macro lens for the K-7 and concluded two things: the 100mm will be a better option for shooting macro because you can shoot a little bit farther from you subject, which will be useful when shooting insects which are more likely to take a flight if you shoot them real close.

The 100mm lens also produced a more pronounced bokeh compared other lenses with shorter focal length, according to the information I read online.

Then I consulted one of my photography-inclined siblings who owns a Nikon D300 and the Nikkor 105mm f2.8G ED IF AF-S VR. I thought, well, 100mm and 105mm was not entirely different in terms of focal length. I asked him how the 105mm was doing and he said the lens was doing fine.

To cut the long story short, I went for the 100mm. But this post is not about the lens; it’s about the macro photos taken with the Nikkor 105mm f/2.8G ED IF AF-S VR. My brother kindly agreed to allow me to use some of his macro shots taken with the lens on a Nikon D300. Here they are:

This is how close you can get if you combine a 100mm macro lens with Raynox DCR-250. This baby spider is only about the size of a match’s tip. The photo was taken under a challenging lighting condition — inside a storeroom, with the flash bounced from the back wall. I guess if the size had been bigger, it would have come out much sharper.

This is what you get from a 100mm dedicated macro lens and a Raynox DCR-250 super macro conversion lens. The Raynox 250 is an 8-diopter lens and fit nicely withe smc Pentax D FA 100mm f2.8 Macro WR. The picture is cropped to amplify the magnification ratio but obviously, this is still not close enough.

Need for diopter

I guess, the most ideal conversion lens for a 100mm macro lens is the Raynox MSN-202 super macro conversion lens, which is a 25-diopter lens. Only than can the picture be taken at an extreme close up.

I’ve been trying unsuccessfully to research the name of this bug; so forgive me for not able to provide information on this insect. Photo was taken with a point-and-shoot camera and edited using Oloneo PhotoEngine.

These are the kind of macro photos I want to take — extreme macro photographs, showing great details of small things.

Taken by American photographer Thomas Shahan who goes by the Flickr name of Opo Terser, you can check his amazing Flickr photographs here, these close up pictures are real close that they now reveal the gentle side of these tiny creatures.

He uses Pentax K200D with vintage 28mm f/2.8 Pentax SMC and some other gear to take these pictures. How did he achieve the clarity of shots at this proximity?

He does that by taking several shots and at different focus point and stake them together on Photoshop.