House Jumping Spider

Meet the Jumping Spider. This terror is a whole 0.7 cm long.
2013 is the year of the House Jumping Spider around our place since we are finding a heap crawling around. About six months ago it was Hunstmans and Grasshoppers and the year before it was the Orb Spiders. Seems like all these little creatures just take a turn owning my backyard.

Must admit, am a little more relaxed about the Jumping Spider though, at half the size of a fingernail, it's hardly a fearsome pest.

Jumping Spider Close Up

On close up they are a curious little spider. When spotted, they tend to hold down a stare and look right back at you with those tiny beady eyes and lift up their legs to show they mean business. I pulled out the Sony NEX 5N and clipped on the 30MM Macro to get some close ups and this little guy was trying to jump at the lens. Ballsy little things. Still made me flinch.

Macro Zoom with the Sony NEX 5ND & 30 MM Macro

Have been working on some Macro shots with the Sony NEX. The most difficult part is the lack of Image Stabilisation. I've found using the point focus almost unworkable, without a tripod you simply get too much shake to capture moving subjects. A neat way to get around this is by using the camera's Autofocus settings, through the multi or centre focus, which open up more of the 25 focal points across the image. This will help reduce the amount of blur from movement or shallow depth. As an example below, taking a little more space between the subject, or just enough to avoid them moving away or in this case at the camera, and then applying a zoom over the image. At 100% zoom you still get a decent quality image but you can see some degradation around the legs. But happy with the overall quality, the fact you can zoom in a clearly see this little guy's bearded fangs is great.

100% Zoom and Cropped - Taken with Sony NEX 5N - 30MM Macro

  

33% Zoom and Cropped, Taken with Sony NEX 5N - 30MM Macro

Taken with Sony NEX 5N - 30MM Macro. F/4. 1/60Sec ISO - 100 With Flash

~Pedro