Crab Spider Super Macro

The Boulder Flatirons have an anomalous profusion of Wildlfowers in late spring like nowhere else on the Front Range. Even though it’s a 1.25 hour drive from Ft. Collins, I like to go as often as I can between April and June to catch the different Wildflowers in Bloom. In late May the Western Wallflowers are blooming. Nearly every Wallflower has a resident Crab Spider and group of mating Milkweed Bugs. At first I was only drawn to look at the Wallflowers closer because of the Milkweed Bugs, and didn’t notice the tiny, well-camouflaged Spiders until I was on my knees. I had to give care not to touch the Crab Spiders because they’d drop off their flower and rappel to the ground via silk if scared. I didn’t notice the distinct balloon clown face on the Spider’s abdomen until reviewing the photos. This shot was challenging for many reasons. Use of the Raynox 250 filter on the Olympus 60mm lens produced over 3:1 magnification (35mm equivalent), intensifying vibrations. It proved impossible to set my tripod at the right height and angle so I ended up hand-holding my camera and relying on Olympus’ image stabilization. The wind along the foothills never stops so I had to quickly shoot between gusts. The result is a 15 image stack that didn’t align perfectly and took a lot of manual retouching to make it look right. I’m quickly coming to love the Micro 4/3 + 60mm + Raynox 250 combo, having recently converted from a cumbersome full-frame + reversed wide angle + extension tube combo.