This article features some images of a jumping spider in mid-air, captured handheld in my backyard using Pro Capture H. The photographs are the result of a quick, spur-of-the-moment attempt… so they aren’t the best… but there was some good learning to be gained from this experience. The photographs that follow are six consecutive images taken with the same Pro Capture H run.

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To put these images in context… I was in my backyard experimenting with my technique using HHHR (handheld hi res) technology doing macro photography of some flower buds.

A small, quick movement caught my eye… and I noticed a jumping spider leaping intermittently from one leaf to another.

I was fascinated with the significant distance the jumping spider could cover with its leaps. I made a snap decision to try to photograph it in mid-air. All I had time to do was change my camera to Custom Mode C3 (my Pro Capture H standard settings) and acquire focus on the jumping spider.

The spider jumped almost immediately after I began spooling images into temporary memory. I fully depressed my shutter release… and hoped I had captured the action. The image above was the only somewhat useable image of the jumping spider in mid-air that I got from my Pro Capture H run.

The photograph at least demonstrated that it is possible to capture an image of a jumping spider in mid-air. 🙂 This has whet my appetite for more disciplined attempts to photograph this behaviour in the future.

Unfortunately with this attempt I didn’t have time to adjust my standard Pro Capture H settings… and an aperture of f/6.3 was used. This resulted in extremely shallow depth-of-field as you can see in the image above.

In the future when specifically searching for this type of photographic opportunity I would definitely stop my M.Zuiko 90 mm f/3.5 PRO IS macro lens down to at least f/11… and maybe even f/16 to get more depth of field.

I would also use my M.Zuiko MC-14 teleconverter in order to get some additional magnification so a subject jumping spider is larger in my frame. These two changes may result in me having to shoot at ISO-6400. With the noise reduction available in post processing, I don’t think this will be a problem at all.

The shutter speed of 1/2500 I used seems adequate. The frame rate of 60 fps was also the best one I could have used with my E-M1X. If I had been using an OM-1 or OM-1 Mark II I would have used a frame rate of 120 fps as that change would have doubled my odds of capturing images of the jumping spider in mid-air.

This experience served as a good reminder that we all face situations when we are unable to react quickly enough to adjust all of our settings to what we’d ideally like. But… we should press forward and capture some images anyway… as there could be good learning to be had for the next photographic opportunity.

Technical Note

Photographs were captured handheld using camera equipment  noted in the EXIF data. All images were created from RAW files using Pro Capture H. I used a single, small auto-focus point. My Pre-Shutter Frames and Frame Limiter were both set to 15. I used a frame rate of 60 frames-per-second. This is the 1,467 article published on this website since its original inception in 2015.

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