I hate and fear spiders, but I can get fairly close if someone is there who owns and handles the arachnid. I photographed this fire leg tarantula on black Plexiglas at my semi-annual frog and reptile workshop in St. Louis. The black background, although not natural, is striking and dramatizes this incredibly bizarre creature. The even frontal lighting comes from a ring flash. I set the flash on eTTL (which gives me automatic exposure capability), the lens aperture is f/32 for complete depth of field, and the camera is set to manual exposure mode. The ISO was 400, and I used a 50mm macro lens which tells you I was too close for comfort. This animal is definitely not the cute and cuddly type like the mother and cheetah cub I posted yesterday, but it is, indeed, pretty amazing.
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