My backyard pond is a great source of activity (no fish). In this case it’s a 6-Spotted Fishing spider in a common hunting stance. These spiders sense prey motion with their legs and can even dive to capture small prey, including tiny tadpoles.
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This spider was good enough to stand still as I did a 10 shot stack. Stacks picks up the multiple points of focus in the water as it distorts around the feet.
Pertinent Technical Details
Canon 7D2, 180 mm macro, 1/200 s, f/8, iso 800, tripod and polarizer.
This is a wonderful capture. The detail is superb. I’m not always a fan of spiders, but this guy is quite interesting. It would be fun to see him dive and come up with something.
Mark, a truly excellent closeup of this spider. Your point of their food source survival detection is another one of nature’s adaption on various levels. In this case at ground and pond level. Seeing the extended legs sensing the water movement says everything here. …
Only minor thought for change is a very slight turn down on brightness, but that is totally subjective from monitor to monitor…
Mark: Terrific detail on the spider and the water tension detail puts this in the masterful category for me. Thanks for the natural history lesson as well. Most excellent. >=))>
One day I must do a comparison of all the different eye locations on spiders! The surface tension lines came out so well, on the leaf too. And it’s seldom that we can get a spider reflected in water. Top-notch!
Fantastic. I love the color and details here. The “footprints” are such a cool bonus, too.
Only quibble for me is the comp, as I feel the subject is in a bit of a no-man’s land. Upper third makes sense for the spider, and centered may also work since it’s a very bold shape… but this is somewhere in between. I think cropping a bit more of that empty green pad space at the top could resolve this.
This is a very successful image resulting from stacking. The surface tension of the water makes the shot interesting. Looks good as presented and I have no nits for you…Jim
Oooh this is so nice to see. I’ve never found one actively hunting before, only hanging out in a nursery type web with a photobombing jumping spider. They’re such distinctive little guys compared with other Dolomedes spiders, and smaller, too. I love the feet on the water and the others anchoring it to the leaf. Nicely spotted. Ugh. Sorry.
