Early Morning Meeting

My neighbor and I were going to cut firewood this morning and as I was walking around to the back of the house, I noticed a spiderweb covered in the morning dew. The sun was just breaking over the trees and had the web lit up like tiny crystals. I went back and got the camera and made a few pics of it. This is the one that turned out the best. The pic doesn't do it justice but there are few times when a 2-dimensional image can truly replicate the beauty of such things.



NoOne used a macro shot for her HNT this week. I commented that I was still toying around with the macro settings on my camera but could never quite get the clarity in the pics that I was hoping for, at least on a consistent basis. I had managed to get a few decent pics of flowers back in the spring. I posted those here. Looking at the spider sitting in the middle of its web, I decided I'd try to get a close-up of it. I took 3 pics before getting this one.

It turned out OK but I still couldn't get as close as I would have liked to. I think I just need to break out the user's manual and figure out how to manually adjust a few things, if that is even an option. Right now, I'm just using the "Close Up" setting (for objects closer than 26 inches) and it's just not doing like I want it to.
But...it's all trial and error. And the trial is half the fun.
Any tips on f-stop and focal lengths and any other adjustments that I can try would be welcomed and appreciated.

I hope you are all having a good weekend.