[Faces] A spider slayer...

Most insects wouldn't like to see the face of a spider up close. But there's also a few faces that a spider doesn't want to see up close. And this is one of them, the spider wasp, or 'spider slayer' as it is called in Dutch.
They catch spiders with a paralysing sting. The spider is then placed next to an egg of the wasp. When the egg develops into a larva, the latter starts to consume the still alive spider...

This 100 image stack was taken with the JML 21mm with about 4cm's extension on the bellows.
The widest part of this wasps face is just under 2 millimeters.

WOW that is amazing, wonderful capture. It sounds like there was a fair bit of work involved in achieving this. Brilliant!

Regards, Dutch

I just have to ask since I don't do macro or bugs in general, was the wasp dead when you shot it or did you have some other way of making it sit still for 100 frames?

Incredible detail, great job.

this is an absolutely incredible shot! great job!

awesome shot! and i love your description of the spider slayer.

This shot is phenomenal! It looks like an scanning electron microscope image!

Oh man...

Wow!

WOW that is truly amazing!

Now that's just incredible! Extraordinary detail right down to the 'eyelashes' on the simple eyes and even the little blue blob attached near the mouthparts.

I took thousands of photos of a spider wasp in our garden this year. I followed her as she was excavating her nest (pestered by ants), and later, bringing spiders back to it. I had a perfect view of her but every single photo is blurred and utterly useless as I lacked the knowledge of how to capture such fast-moving insects. She flickered her wings about all over the place, never seemed to stop moving, and was unbelievably fast at hauling heavy prey over rough terrain. I was spellbound by her

I know your wasp obviously isn't in motion, but I long for the day when I have skills like yours to capture such a fascinating creature. You're such an inspiration.

Also waiting along with everyone else to hear the details of just how you did it

Great details...nice stack.

Excellent stack - love the fine detail
Brian V.

Thanks everyone for the nice comments.
The wasp was dead yes. Found it dying in my garden the other day. It had been in some battle I guess for it's stinger was still fully extended (I plan to take some shots of this as well btw).
I had it mounted on a small tripod then, like so (click for larger):

IMAGE LINK: http://i55.tinypic.com​/2s1vznm.jpg

Your post(and the similar ones you posted earlier that I looked up) got me very excited because I recently killed a large wolf spider that snuck up on me in the shower(I'm glad nobody was home because a 22 year old guy shouldn't scream like I did). I killed it by coaxing it into isopropyl alchohol, so it was very much intact, and as it dried it looked very much like it was still alive. Sadly my mom apparently got to it, where I left it...