Quick post today. Went out to my sisters engagement party last night in Muswellbrook and this Garden Orb Spider appeared making his web from the clothes line. I waited until he was finished spinning his web and caught this lucky shot of him. There were quite a few throwaways due to his web moving in the wind, so I was pretty happy to catch this shot, nice and sharp.
I had mucked around with a few Strobist setups using off camera flash but there was too much movement which was frustrating and there was beer waiting to be drunk. So when I chimped this shot I was happy and put the camera away for the night. If it had of been a windless calm evening I would have played more and maybe got some more interesting photos. I am looking forward to getting a macro lens to really bring out the detail in those hairs!
Technorati Tags: digital photography, flash photography, garden orb, Nikon D200, spider, Nikon SB800, web
20 responses so far ↓
1 Les Becker // Feb 4, 2008 at 5:21 am
Wow! Incredible shot! I can never get the the creep-crawlies to cooperate when I try to get a picture. Well done.
2 Reward Rebel // Feb 4, 2008 at 7:18 am
Well, a macro lens would’ve made a it ‘great’ shot, bit it’s beautiful all the same! Love the rich red coloration — I’ve always been rather fond of spiders, partly cos I don’t like flies, and spiders eat ‘em;-D
3 Chica // Feb 4, 2008 at 7:35 am
That is a wicked cool spider!
4 webduck // Feb 4, 2008 at 12:45 pm
Now, that is a spider you can respect! Very cool photo Tim.
5 sunrhythms // Feb 4, 2008 at 1:37 pm
yeah that nikon is a beast!
6 David Webb // Feb 4, 2008 at 5:01 pm
This is great, certainly for a shot without a macro lens! The web comes out really well, and the red of the spider really draws attention.
7 Tim // Feb 5, 2008 at 6:11 pm
Thanks all, so glad you like it.
8 Margaret // Feb 6, 2008 at 12:42 am
Love that spider — your’s are slightly different than ours in the states.
http://www.kemar-k9s.com/HoundBlog/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/dsc01000.JPG
Here’s a photo of one I took that built his/her web in the casement of my office window.
It was a lot of fun watching that spider catch insects and build its web.
ê¿ê
9 Debo Hobo // Feb 6, 2008 at 4:47 am
nice photo, gross spidy
10 Judi // Feb 6, 2008 at 6:13 am
Great shot! Very nice…… neat spider too.
11 raymondm // Feb 6, 2008 at 6:18 am
wow, i am trembling. I felt as if it was real enough to crawl off my monitor.
p.s.
i have a serious case of arachnophobia
12 avcr8teur // Feb 6, 2008 at 4:17 pm
Wow, what a great macro. It looks like a giant beast close up.
13 narissa // Feb 10, 2008 at 1:32 am
and there was beer waiting to be drunk.. LOL the beer is more attractive than this beautiful creature, it seems..
14 Juha Ylitalo // Feb 11, 2008 at 7:27 pm
Flash has created nice separationg with the target (spider) and whatever was on the background.
Great shot.
I am eagerly waiting to see, what you are going to accomplish with off camera flash.
15 Jordan McClements // Feb 16, 2008 at 7:43 am
Makes me glad I don’t live in Australia!
16 Tim // Feb 16, 2008 at 8:58 am
Jordan - Australia is a pretty safe country to live in. We have some nasties that can hurt you, but this garden orb spider is harmless. They might bite but they are not venomous. They pretty much just hang about at night in the garden and catch insects. They just look mean.
We do need to watch out for the red back spider and funnel web spider though. Those guys will really cause some damage.
17 jesie // Feb 16, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Sharp shot. It looks dangerous to me. It reminds me of my guided jungle walk when the ranger told us that a spider we saw could attack a bird!
18 Andrew Boyd // Feb 17, 2008 at 4:16 pm
Hi Tim,
great shot
I showed Donna (my love) the photo and she said that they are really cool spiders - they build the orb web anew every evening, catch their dinner, then hide under a leaf during the day.
Best regards, Andrew
19 Jayne // Feb 18, 2008 at 1:01 pm
Not a big fan of the 8 legged freaks but their tenacious attitude and amazing weaving fascinate me.
Great photo
20 Kevin // Feb 19, 2008 at 1:10 pm
Dear lord…that’s a big spider. Nice photo though, I am impressed.
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