First jumping spider photo with the new Pentax K200D!

Click here to watch a video of this spider. (Make sure to watch it in "High Quality" if you can)

There is this one light fixture I always check when I come home hoping to find a jumping spider, as there is a little spider nest up inside the lid. This morning, to my delight, I saw the front legs of a Phidippus sticking out when I checked! I carefully coaxed her out of her home without damaging the it (or more importantly, her) and preceded to photograph her with my new camera and take a short video (with a little Canon point and shoot camera). When I was finished, I placed her back in the fixture, and she promptly returned to her little shelter.

This may not be the best introduction to my new camera (this is a pretty close crop and was taken at f/16 with the 50mm reversed to some extension tubes), but rest assured the quality is quite a step up from my previous camera, and there will me much better photos to come! This was taken at about 1:1 (?). My previous camera was a Pentax *ist DL, and I was pretty rough with it (over the last three summers it had to endure quite a bit of sweat, I dropped it several times, used it in harsh conditions, etc...). It was starting to become outdated, not to mention the pop-up flash was blown, the grip was coming away from the body, and the delete button shorted out due to all that sweat.