A Jumping Spider Catches food in mid air

Jumpercatch: 5min approx. A jumping spider captures a lacewing in mid air. Both real and slow motion times are shown. Check it out!

VIDGEOS and EDITING
I shot this video actually back in 2005. In it's RAW form it captured something rarely seen and even more rarely captured on video in any way, a jumping spider catching pray in mid air. The Video lasts about 5min. This was totally impromptu, I had no idea she would really catch something. Simply hopeful, I filmed her for about 15mins and ended up getting a shot I never expected. Especially using the gear I was, a Kodak DX7630 with a homemade close-up lens. This video was shot right out side my door on my outside light. I edited it now that I have a good video editing program (something other then Microsoft Movie Maker.. and yeah you gotta pay for it if you want it when it comes to video edit software). With that program I did some quick experiments this time, not only did I cut out most of the boring parts of the video but I did a second take on the capture which shows the spider capturing the lacewing in mid air at 1/10th real-speed. The ability to show you both real speed and "slow-mo", is one of many reasons I chose to finally get a video edit program. I usually keep the topic on photography and the topics of my pictures but here I will make a note, after going through HELL with Microsoft Movie maker in BOTH Windows XP and Windows Vista I looked on line to see if I was not the only one. I found several sites with endless comments way too graphic in language to quote here. It seems, windows movie maker comes with Windows Vista and with Windows XP but is a completely failure program. In other words, its so full of holes that I was unable to even edit the smallest of videos and spent most of my time restarting. One would thing, Bill Gates has the largest personal fortune in the world, something like 25 billion dollars. Enough to make every man woman and child in America a Millionaire without even a downgrade in lifestyle. Yet he won't even ship programs that work! And I tried to find fixes for Microsoft Movie maker, which used to work. Back about 4 years ago. Now days it's been left in Windows Vista but it simply crashes. All reports say it's completely useless. If Microsoft wont' fix the problem with there most basic software, and old Bill just keeps getting richer and richer.. it makes me wonder if he uses his own software. Or does windows movie maker work if I were to buy the full 64bit version for my dual core computer "Windows Vista Professional" or Whatever the f&$%...maybe.. I bet it works in there. Yeah. Sorry, I don't have an extra $500, or is it $1000+?? The fact that Bill Gates got away with selling something that costs 25cents to make for $250+ is bad enough, the fact that the product does not even work for the consumer or the poor and thus semi-pro user is even worse. I wonder if he reads any of the hate mail he gets on line. I really do. There was literally 100s of pages of it on Movie maker alone on one site. But he's the richest man in the world. So he does not care. He does not strike me as being a very humble or generous man. 25 Billion. That's his "personal fortune" last I heard. On paper it's a whole lot more. Considering that 1000 million is 1 billion, that's a difficult number to put into perspective. How Bill Gates can live with himself and act like he does is something I don't and won't ever understand. Imagine having the power to change the world, and not using it. It’s sad. As I said, I usually don’t comment on politics or anything like that on this site, but in this case I just had to say something. If you want a basic and stable Video edit software package around $50-100, Roxio My DVD Video Lab 10 is not a bad choice.
--G.Beasley

Dancing Talking Spider!

The star of this show is the incredible Araneus diadematus

I know what you might be thinking, I used a video edit program to match up the spider's movement to my voice. However, had I have done that.. do you really think that I would have chosen to say what I said. This is RAW footage as you can see from the overexposure. I had no time to set my video mode correctly for this one. Timed exactly and caught on video by accident while I was taking stills with a Kodak camera. I used the video function to show the spider and purely by accident realized that every time I spoke she shook her web and moved her legs! This of course was a response. Spiders do not have ears as we know them, however the slightest of vibrations on there webs or leg hairs can cause them to quickly respond and investigate as it may mean for her.. a meal. When she taps the web, she's using a kind of "sonar" in the web. Females listen for the right sequence of taps on there web made by a male of the correct species. This way they don't get eaten. Before a spider goes for a kill, she will check out as much as possible what she's going for. So in effect, she's sending a "sonar ping" through her web. These taps bounce back differently if anything is in the web. Spiders have an extra ordinary ability to remember things. This same species even shocked the scientific community when they systematically learned how to build webs in 0g orbit and a completely new web-building strategy was needed. They adapted quickly in the Space shuttle and built perfect webs after some trail and error.



She dances to nearly every word I say with her lighting reflexes. This was originally a large video that showed me capturing a spider in my aunts house. I used a new video edit program to add the text and convert it to an internet-compatible file. NO other modifications where made. Not every spider even of this species will do this so on demand. Spiders do have there own personalities there is no question. Usually you can only do this a couple of times before a spider gets wise and afraid climbing or dropping out of the web. This one however, seemed to like to dance to my voice!

An example of the "drop technique" used by many species of spiders. Often used by our hero here, A. diadematus. This is another shot of the same species of spider. This time she's playing dead after having dropped out of her web. A quick defense. It is not a good idea to handle spiders like this however. First off she will roll around in your hand in a ball like that but she may be injured if your not very careful. And last but not least, this is the time when a spider is most likely to bite in self defense. They are not considered dangerous to humans by anyone’s standards, but one should always be careful as you never know about allergies and you should also consider that the spider is a living thing which belongs safe in her web. Outside of it.. she has to build a new one. Catch one too small, and she may not have the energy to rebuild a new one.


Also called the "cross spider" and garden spider. These are among the safest spiders. Although I recomend NEVER handleing spiders, if you were to get bit by this one, the most you would get would be about 1/10th of a bee sting. They are not very agressive and play an important role in insect population control.




Since web builders have such bad eyesight, they almost completely really upon vibrations to tell what kind of pray is in there web and what's going on. If they detect something dangerous, they will not approach, or may even cut it loose. I've seen them pluck objects like dead leaves from there webs without even a test bite. They know what's going on. So in this case, the feel of her web memorized, she's confused by it's vibration when I talk. So she wonders what's going on. Both as a warning to other spiders and to investigate where the vibrations are.. she sends out her "pings" every time I talk. Unable to isolate what direction they are coming from she becomes confused and on guard. I could have kept doing this for a while, but sooner or later she would have tired of it.
--G.Beasley

SPIDERS in WINTER an unexpected find

First it got really cold here as you can see from my recent articles. Then, over a couple of days, when the snow had all finally melted, out came a few spiders as fast as the sun. This Wolf spider was one of about 5 I spotted in my front yard. Wolf spiders are well known for carrying both there eggs and there young. I was astonished to see how quickly they appered. Clearly, despite a recorded 8-20 degrees farenhight that lasted for over 2 weeks many wondering (non web building) spiders hold on and build sufficiant places to overwinter.These pics were taken just a few days ago. When a warm spell after the snow melted that had been arround for nearly a month came through. When the temp gets past about 65 degrees farenhight, the spiders and insects start comming out. No matter what time of year it is or if winter is over yet or not. I was amazed to realize that these species clearly overwinter and can survive serious temperature extremes while being burried under feet of snow for weeks or more.

This is a nearly fully grown jumping spider (Genus Salticus) about 1 cm long or so. She seems well fed and appered very fast on one particularly hot day in the sun. I captured this shot at about F32 with a directed light flash and my Cannon 10D digital SLR. Having a directed flash for lighting is a very important key to getting nice insect and spider shots.

If you don't have the money for a macro flash (most of them run about $400+) a very inexpecnive alternative can be setup. If your DSLR has all the contacts, any old extenernal flash will do. One that can be held in your hand is a real benifit. A flashgun or even a small flash ment for older cameras. If you can direct the light at the right angles, your shots will show far more detail then if shot stright on such as with a typical clip above camera flash unit. With some cameras, clever use of aliminum foil can direct light where you want it but it's not easy. It's best to buy a macro-flash unit like those used by CSI detectives. However, with a bit of electronics knowledge one can build a flashgun out of a couple of old flashes that will do as good or even better a job. My favorte is a low power flash unit that I can velcro right to my lens any way I want to direct the light. I only very recently began useing it. One of it's best features is that it only uses 1 AA rechargable battery and is very small and easy to use yet procduces plenty of light up through F40+

I won't give away all my secrets, but lighting is deffinately the key to getting good spider and insect shots or macro shots in general. Light comming from right on a subject makes for a "flat" image. And does not show detail. It's incredible how my new flash equpiment works with my Cannon 10D to produce exciteing new possibilities for this summer. I have a whole new series of insect and spider shots to shoot with directed lighting. Most of my past images were not done with very much light direction. The few that did were really awesome. Sometimes things like the top of this sync works natually to throw light on the subject. This spider survived most of the winter in my house. Others clearly can survive and thrive if the sun comes out any time of year. They also are keenly aware of it, as just a few days change from freezing cold to spring temperatures in early Janurary can bring them out for a short time.

This species I hardly ever see during the winter, but this was one of the first shots I took useing directed light. It's dated 2009 but it was actually taken in mid 2006. At that time I had no professional camera gear. I only had a Kodak DX7630. It was good on the mega pixcels, but for macro I had to build everything. Lenses, and a flash director-reflector which I used to capture this shot. Showing how clear details come up when you have the lighting right. I try to shoot from angles that will brightly show either one or two sides or completely bathe the subject in light from all directions if possible with two flash units.

LET IT SNOW! The Storm of the decade!

Alina and I walking in of a winter wonderland. Here we did our shopping before the snow got really heavy. In less then a week, it went from temps in the 50s and looking like we are having no winter, to the hardest winter and deep freeze in years.


The first thing I do when there is snow is go out and take night shots, and long exposures. This tree was a 20sec exposure at iso100 or so. Focusing can be difficult if your using a digital SLR. My best advice to set your focus quick and easy is to use a pocket laser pointer. The red dot will give the camera a point. Make sure one of your AF area points is focused on the dot and you should be able to focus in on things at a distance in darkness where otherwise use auto focus would be impossible and manual focus just as impossible because it's too dark. Another way is to use a flash but often these light pulses are not bright enough to focus the camera. Expensive flash units have IR or light focus systems built into them. If they do work for you, just get the right range and then switch your lens over to Manual focus. Then the camera will stay focused until you put it back on so you can take several shots and find the best exposure time. Be sure and turn off the flash unit or close your pop up flash before you take the shot if you want it to be a true night exposure. I find a small pocket laser-pointer an easy system to focus my SLRs and DSLRs in the dark. Some cameras have IR focusing systems that make it even more easy, especially compact cameras.

Every nightshot needs good white ballence. Sometimes however, I just let the camera select for me or set it for daylight. This produces off colors but also can show interesting effects and add color and feel to pictures. White ballence setting here should have been twards the 60hz range. The "light blub" setting. Your digital camera will show. If you shoot film, you won't have much choice in the matter unless you go to speical mesures. So this winter Cathedreal I just captured and left exactly how I shot it. However, since it was shot in RAW, like all images shot in RAW, white ballence is not fixed. You can adjust it with a simple mouse movement into the right colors. Sometimes however, effects like this can be cool so I don't change them. It's this color because of the color of the light it is picking up on. Street and home lights.
Ice cycles get longer and hard enough to become dangerous! These are more then 3ft long.
This is how it started..
Like the calm before the storm, I went out because it was nearly 60F in Decmeber! I took quite a few shots one day. Not knowing yet that the biggest winter storm in over five years here and 40 years in Oregon was about to hit!

Grass was growing and dew formed making for springtime shots. Just a week after this picture was taken, this grass was barried in snow and it was about 15F.

Moss before the snow was green as spring.

A new flash lets me take better macro shots. This female Sheetweb spider made it inside before the cold weather. Prolonged below freezeing weather kills spiders and insects. If there are a number of hot winters, many species survive through the winter well.

This was the most amazing, taken just before the snow storm, this maple bug feeds on a blade of grass. You can tell from it's long mouthparts extending. Maple bugs overwinter communally. They often live under houses but pose no threat to homes.

Then the snow came.


A shot from one of my favorate lookout points as the storm started with severe cold and a light dusting of snow in low areas. Your looking at Washington state and the town of Dallsport.

Ice cicles formed in the coldest of times. These were probubly created by my dryer. Melting in only one area when it was very cold all day and night.

Then the snow came. This was a few days in, we got a total of about 2 and a half feet solid. That is not as much as we got in 2004, but very close. The news in Portland where they got over a foot (uncommon there) said this was the largest storm since the 1960s. Most notably the coldest. My digital thermomiter got as low as 6 degrees.

BLIZZARD DAY!


Snow piles over 6ft high in parking lots.

I hiked over a mile in the snow just to capture these shots of MillCreek. In The Dalles, 2 feet of snow seems to come every few years. However, this cold made for some awesome creek shots and the coldest photo-walk I've ever done. I protected my digital SLR with a special camera sack that fits over the entire camera. You can operate the controls in rain, snow, cold and all. It works well but like everything in photography costs too much!


Another shot, be sure and click on this image to see a large image. Use your <-- explorer's back arrow to return to my site. Over a foot accumulated in less then a couple of days on this picknick bench. People cleaned them off, but it kept pileing up. When I got here after my long hike, I bought a cup of coffiee and sat at the bench outside. Even though it was only about 12 degrees, I was hot, and too covered in snow to stay inside the store so I waited for my cab out here.

And here we have a nightshot, one of nearly 100 shots I took at night. These exposures range from 5 to 30 sec. The art of taking nightshots has been awesome this year and is really fun when there is snow. I need to go through allot more of my pictures to find more of the better ones. One peace of advice I have to give to photographers.. don't take too many pictures but take enough. Finding that ballence is difficult in the digital age.
Another area of millcreek. The snow and nice makes this look like somewhere up in the mountains. It was a fun hike. I had to use garbage bags to keep my feet warm and dry. Took a cab home, it was a long hike! With my dissability (chorinc pancreititus) I was also in allot of pain to take these pictures. I just did it because I love it. And am proud of the shots I got because I decided to make this difficult and dangerous hike. I stated in constant contact with Alina (My feioncee) with a 2 way very long range VHF radio cliped on my backpack.

Some ice cycles were incredible but I am a bit afraid of showing them because in doing so I put other people's houses on the internet. As a photographer, I should not do that. So I will have to go through my pics and see if I can find some more that are generic enough to post once cropped.
More millcreek views.
As I left, this was the view looking back. Public and private people were getting arround every way possible. This guy was right in thinking his tracktor was a better idea then his car!

This kind of ice can be dangerous when it thaws out. Not just to hit people, but ice cycles can break windows.


Another shot from one of my favorate lookout points here. In walking distance, I was able to shoot the Washinton state view so often shown in my website. Now with well over a foot of snow on the ground this was a cold but beautiful night. This was a nighttime exposure set for about 20sec. I finally got the colors right when I set my white ballence for 60Hz or so. Your going to want to manually set your white ballence when doing nightshots.



A nearby house really was in the Christmas sprit. Against this dark background, it can be seen how hard it was snowing. It snowed like this, and harder, for days.


Dark as night but yet brighter then day. Nighttime exposures are fun and one of my favorates. You never really know how it will turn out.
Taken completely late at night, things get bright the longer your exposure. The camera has to be absolutly still. I have many other shots, some showing litghts from passing cars I plan to add to this article. I need to process more pics for that.
It was so cold that this long exposure captured my breath. I had to learn how to hold it for a while when taking long exposures. It was very bright however, so most of them did not have to be very long in this environment.
The key to captureing snowflakes in a picture is to use your flash unless your background is sufficiantly dark to show snow. Set your flash to a low setting and see snowflakes!

Bali Flashbacks 2007

The largest orb-web building spider in the world. As big as a small dinner plate, the Nephila. This one is probubly the Nephila maculatl, however, I'm not entirely certain. It has smaller but still quite large relitives in Florida. Also called the Golden silk spider, she is a true wonder, females can have a 6 foot wide web and a 1 and a half inch long body. Legspan on some species I've found near the Palau islands gets to about 8 inches. They are not considered dangerous to humans dispite there large size. Locals do not kill them, as they catch insects and are considered part of nature. We could learn allot about pest control by listening to other cultures.
In some places the very strong silk is collected and actually used to make fishing nets. It is strong enough to floss your teeth with and was also used in WWII for very precise bomb sites.

Oxyopidae sp
This spider has a relitive common in the USA. Oxyopes lineatus. This one I happened to find hunting. They do not spin webs but rather hunt like there namesake, the Linx. Useing there very sensitive hairs to detect flying insects and a drop line to escape danger with.


He's waiting for something to come by and he will pounce. Those spiny hairs are very sensitive, capable of 'listening' to sounds probubly from several feet away.

And here is a female of a different species. Just slightly. This Linx is guarding her eggsack. Spiders are usually very good mothers.

This is a male as can be seen by it's palps, in the case they are black. The bulb look of these small legs near the mouth indicates sex in mature spiders. The body size here is about 1cm or so.
This large butterfly was one of only a few shots I got of butterflies in Bali. They move fast so I had to have my SLR set on the right settings and be ready. Catching butterflies in flight is not easy, especially when they are shy. I caought this one with my 300mm lens and an extention tube. A great way to capture shy insects. Extension tubes can be very useful for your SLR. Just one can make for awesome macro shots. Don't forget to click to see larger view. To return to my site use your back <--- (arrow) on the top left hand side of the screen. Another shot of only about 3 butterfly shots that turned out.


There were many dragonflys down there. This one I shot from some distance away with my Cannon digital SLR. It's resting in the sun right now. Dragonflies are fierce hunters, but I saw one taken down in less then a second by army ants. It landed and was covered instantly. Taken apart alive. I need to find that picture, I've never seen anything like that for real. Yes army ants are that fast. I was attacked by them in the jungle while shooting. Before I even knew it I had about 50 of them on my back and neak, legs and all.. biting and stinging. It hurt really bad but luckily I kept my cool and they were not highly toxic. Never jump in water or panic. I used my cloths to swat them dead as quickly as possible and got myself away from the area. They were on me before I even knew I was near a nest.

A scarab beetle. This one sitting on my thumb. I set my aperture low here, like F3 or so. This way only the head is clearly visible. I did not create this effect in photoshop although it is possible to do it that way. I like to keep my pictures as true to reality as possible and do the optical stuff for real. I went to Bali it will be 2 years ago this march. I hope to take my Fiancee
Alina to Guam and Bali someday, but we just don't have the money. Airline benefits are not enough anymore.