Orb-Weaver Bonanza

Garden Spider (Araneus diadematus) feeding on prey

I spent some time searching a local wood and had a less than successful session photographing honey bees. I walked away without any decent photos but with a forehead sting that left me looking like the elephant man for the next few days.

Once the swelling went down I returned to the same woods but focussed on something safer, spiders. There were plenty around when you stepped off the beaten track and you had to be mindful of the larger webs at eye height as well as the smaller ones at ground level.

Garden Spider (Araneus diadematus) feeding on what looks like a beetle of some description

Garden Spider (Araneus diadematus)

They all seemed to be catching plenty in their webs to eat. One had a fly wrapped up and was in the middle of eating a beetle. I wanted to get a head-on shot of one, in the middle of its web which is always difficult with a flash diffuser. You have to be aware of how close the diffuser is getting to the web as it is likely to hit it before the camera is at the preferred angle. In order to make sure I was clear of the web, I held the camera out in front of me facing directly upwards and tilted the screen towards me so I could see what the lens was aiming at. I now have a macro set-up that is incredibly small and lightweight, compared to my previous one and the screen articulates much more completely. This means I am able to photograph things that are a lot more awkwardly positioned. Even so, the wind was blowing the spider backwards and forwards. on its web, so I had to make allowances for that and couldn’t quite get the really low angle that I would have liked. The upshot of having to settle for an angle slightly more elevated is that you get more of the abdomen in the shot and a better depth of field. This was probably the best move anyway, given that a focus stack was out of the question so I would be relying on a single shot.

Garden Spider (Araneus diadematus) waiting on the edge of its web