John Peters, f/0.58 (ANIMALS 2026)

Web:

https://johnpeters.mypixieset.com/

This is a female Deinopis Subrufa (more commonly known as a net casting spider). Net casting spiders are more sensitive to light than a barn owl, and have an equivalent aperture of f/0.58, allowing for a significant amount of light absorption. This one in particular had very recently molted, leaving behind an iris-like look in its posterior median eyes. In order to achieve this shot, rather than using full frame, I went with the Canon 90D since it has a 32.5 megapixel 1.6x crop sensor, giving me more reach when using the Laowa 2.5-5x 25mm lens. I set the Laowa at 5x magnification, which brought me to a full frame equivalent of 5.6x magnification. To add to the challenge of this, at 5x magnification the Laowa is at it sharpest wide open at f/2.8, making the depth of field ridiculously shallow. Being so shallow, this image had to be focus stacked, and ended up requiring 169x images for this result. Since net casting spiders stay very still, I was thankfully able to use a tripod for this, as doing this handheld would be near impossible. Though I'm the photographer, I give all glory to the Lord for His magnificent creation. It's so humbling to see the sheer detail He has put in even the smallest of things. Just take a look at the feather-like hairs on this spiders face!

Images have been resized for web display, which may cause some loss of image quality. Note: Original high-resolution images are used for judging.