Arachnid Terracotta Army (don't look if you hate spiders)

[Duke]

Cleaned out an uninhabitied, seldom visited section of my mom's basement, storage room, which included changing out some very old spider traps. Two of them were so loaded that I was certain there was an opportunity for some macro practice. I have been interested in macro shooting but have only dabbled in it a bit and without success. I want to get some good aquatic entomology shots this year as part of my fly fishing interest....you know....a mayfly sitting on a reel or my hand holding a pteronarcys....one of those that are very cliche and overdone in the fly fishing magazines but that doesn't bother me and i want some anyway. I thought this would be good practice even if it might be a tad weird. Interesting at least. Try as I might I just could not get what I would call and awesome, "arachnid terracotta army" shot. They do look like a miniature scene from a Harry Potter film, but not remarkable were they not spiders. Critique ideas about what you would have done differently are welcome. These were all taken with a Canon 550d and a Tamron 28-75 on a rock solid Oben tripod. I tried backlit and direct light. All were natural light. F stop ranged from 7.1 to 18.

I don't remember any macros being posted on here but am sure that someone here has tried it out a bit. Give me the secret! As you will see I had a hard time getting the DOF I wanted but was not using extension tubes.