Texas Brown Tarantula

This is an Extended Depth of Field image of the Texas Brown Tarantula (Aphonopelma hentzi). My technique involved blending 12 shots taken at various planes of focus along the animal. In Photoshop, I then combined the layers and erased areas out of focus to reveal layers beneath where the areas were in focus. I did this through as much of the Tarantula as possible. My goal was to reveal as much in focus as possible, thus extending what would have been a very shallow depth of field. The effort took many hours over several days.

The Tarantula was shot as it sat on a large boulder in a stream in the Lost Maples State Natural Area, near Vanderpool, Texas.

Original shots taken with a Canon 1D MkIII, Canon 100mm macro lens, ISO 200, 1/6 sec., f/11. A Canon EX580 flash was used with an OmniBounce to provide fill light. Tripod mounted.