Nursery Web Spider Mum & Babies Photo

Photographer’s Note

Today is again a very Overcast day (lots of clouds)very little bright light.
What we have here in my own back garden on the leaf of a solomons seal plant is some sort of large Nursery Web Spider, (Pisaura mirabilis), if any body knows what sort please tell me, can not find in my books.
She is 50mm - 2inches across the widest part of her legs. the whole area is covered in random strands of web which are there to protect her nest of babies wcan be seen in 2 groups one set between her lowwer legs and a few more under the grass blade at the bottom of the picture.
I did try some pictures using flash but it seemed to limit the DOF and with her legs being so wide a lot was dropping out of focus, not what I wanted.
Adjustments
Levels
saturation +12 lightness +3
brightness +2 contrast +4
sharpen edges and fade back to 75%
USM 120% X 1.2px radius X threshold 1 fade back to 25%
crop to 800 X 800 px at 72dpi
save to web 195K

stevey, iamxa, milloup, carper, Michael_Gan, RAP, damsmad, mogens-j has marked this note useful

Critiques | Translate

PDP (439) 2004-07-12 7:22

Rob, Beautiful result...who would mess with her! It is a Nursery Web Spider, Pisaura mirabilis, I like the way they arrange their front legs. (I have a picture of one in my album that you maybe interested to see - with a brief explanation).

iamxa (2836) 2004-07-12 7:29

Very well document. I like very much your photo and your note. Catched at the perfect moment and light and color excellent.

milloup (1829) 2004-07-12 7:31

Great capture, very educational and with excellent DOF. I'm glad you didn't sacrifice DOF for flash, there's sufficient light here ;-)
Mogens and I took turns on one of these lugging a huge egg sack around a while back. If we could find her again, she'd probably be the proud mother of just such a brood as this ;-)

carper (64878) 2004-07-12 7:44

Very nice capture Robert,
Very good job you did here. With you and a few others of TE you can start a biology photo site, with a lot of great captures, like this one. Yes Robert, your really good in it. With my compliments.

Michael_Gan (2772) 2004-07-12 8:05

At first I thought it was a huge spider. Then I saw the location on top of the page (Nottinghamshire) which made me conspicious and after that I read your very informative note (thanks!) and knew that it is just 50mm in size. Very nice shot of this daily life family scene!

RAP (1053) 2004-07-12 9:35

Wow! Que imagen tan impresionante. Espectacular aracnido con sus crias tan detalladas. Tambien muy instructivos los datos de tu nota. Gracias por compartirla.

Wow! That so impressive image. Spectacular arachnid with its young so detailed. Also very instructive the data of your note. Thanks to share it.

damsmad (173) 2004-07-12 10:13

Utterly impressive indeed! Almost scarry too, yes.
Wolf Spider then... ? She wears the name right. Man, the fellow looks like a true hunter. I would'nt try to piss her off. She's like one of these spaceships in Star Wars. Great shot.

cdewet (0) 2004-07-12 14:54

Robert, One mean * ugly lady, and her brood gives on shivers!! Very well captured!

Dingo (79) 2004-07-12 15:01

Hope they don't become a plague in your garden, Robert. Beautiful capture of an ugly animal and its offspring.

mogens-j (56) 2004-07-13 14:18

Excellent picture of this Pisaura mirabilis with her nursery web - am I just a little green now.

The babies are very sharp and lots of details all over - great job.

yesterday (9787) 2004-07-16 14:34

I dont like spiders, but good spottet, good picture, not so often se one like this, good sharp, good color and contrast.

regards Kaj Nielsen