Posted in Arachnids, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Portraits, wildlife, tagged Alexandria VA, Araneus cavaticus, barn spider, Canon 50D, Huntley Meadows Park, Neoscona crucifera, spider, spots, Tamron 180mm macro lens on October 21, 2013| 3 Comments »
As the outside temperatures continue to drop, I am seeing fewer and fewer spiders. This is one of my favorite recent shots of what I think is a barn spider. I really like the way that the spots in the background mirror the spots on the spider’s abdomen.
I think that this may be a Neoscona crucifera spider, though it may be an Araneus cavaticus spider. Strangely enough, both of them are sometimes known as barn spiders.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Arachnids, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged Alexandria VA, Araneus cavaticus, barn spider, Canon 100mm macro lens, Canon Rebel XT, flash, spider on June 25, 2013| 5 Comments »
The last time I posed a question about using flash to photograph a spider, the majority of readers said that the spider looked much better in natural light, but the case is not so clear for this Barn Spider (Araneus cavaticus) that I spotted in the garden yesterday.
The spider was in a web that stretched across the path in the garden, about chest-high, and was in subdued light. I really wanted to shoot at an angle to give the spider some dimensionality, but it was tough to do so, because of the web, and depth of field was an issue. To make matters worse, a breeze would kick up periodically, making slow shutter speeds a bit problematic.
There was no question about whether to use a tripod or not—it was obvious that I needed it. Initially, I shot at f/10 in aperture priority, with a shutter speed of 1/13 of a second, resulting in the second image. Although parts of the spider are blurry, the head and eyes are pretty sharp. I then raised the shutter speed to 1/200 and used my pop-up flash and got the first image. The background turned almost totally black, but I was happy that it did not blow out the details in lighter areas of the spider and the eyes remain pretty sharp.
I like the image with the black background better this time and like the look of the background. Which one do you prefer? (Clink on this link to see the posting from March when I initially posed a similar question.)
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved
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