I got a lot of compliments on the spider picture from April 6th, so I thought I'd try doing it again and maybe giving up my secret.  This spider is the same type as the previous photo.  You can get an idea of his size in relation to the thumbtack in the background.  The trick is just keeping the spider still.  In both photos I did this by capturing him on clear packaging tape.  Last time I got him upside-down so it looked like he was suspended in air.  This time he was a bit more awkward.  The next key is focus.  I set the camera to the closest possible focus and use the viewfinder to try and focus on his eyes.  You move the camera in and out until you have a mental average of the best focus, then shoot.  I took eighteen shots at various angles and got three I was happy with.  This one was my favorite for a number of reasons.  Most importantly the focus was dead on for the spider's eyes and the edge of the tack.  Another part I liked was that the flash bounced off the inside of the tack and filled the spider with a matching golden light.  This photo was taken on a Sony T-100 in super-macro mode with image stabilization on.  Hand-held 1/40sec, F5.3, flash on lowest setting.  Photo is reduced in size but not cropped.  Only editing was to remove a stuck sensor pixel that started showing its ugly face around photo 10,000 on the camera.