Black and Yellow Garden Spider (new photos added)

[dmcantrell]

This is the Argiope aurantia, one of the species of garden spiders most famous for the "zipper" patterns in their webs. This is a fairly large one, measuring approx 2" long. She was just out chilling in the leaves of our banana trees this morning as I was doing some garden work so I stopped to take her picture. This image is reduced quite a bit for the web, but the original shows some more detail and the individual hairs on the legs and body.

Nikon D300, Nikkor 70-300VR @135mm w/ 36mm extension tube, f/16, ISO200
Nikon SB-800, +2eV w/ home-made softbox



Here's the setup :
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[Kenj8246]

A beautiful spider...if I may say such a thing about a spider. Very nice shot, David.

[ttusa]

Beautiful contrast between the spider and leaf, David!

[ggeorge11]

Very nice. I like the setup!

[jfoureyes]

Excellent! One of my favorite spiders too

[ggeorge11]

whith the set you made, I wonder if a scaled down version could be made, using the buit in flash on my KX? Would you be offended if I used your idea, and tried it?

[dmcantrell]

Originally Posted by ggeorge11

whith the set you made, I wonder if a scaled down version could be made, using the buit in flash on my KX? Would you be offended if I used your idea, and tried it?

Are you are referring to the home-made soft-box?

I used this site as a reference, and modified it to my own tastes : Home-made Softbox

Here are a couple of other views of it for your reference :

(click)


(click)

[dmcantrell]

Thanks for the compliments Kenny, Therese, Joseph and Jim!

[ggeorge11]

Thanks for the in formaiton. I have wanted to do something like this. I have an LED ring light that does not talk to the camera, So a slight modification like this, might just do the trick.

[dmcantrell]

Here's one from tonight :

The gigantic spider was about 10' off the ground in an ENORMOUS web that stretched between the treetop and our retaining wall.


And this is a tree in my front yard, the retaining wall, and a soup can for scale. The top of that wall is about 6' off the ground.

[SCone]

Did they "bounce" for you? I've got too close to them in the barn and they start boncing up and down on their web to scare me away. Amazing to watch. Have one on the back porch right now. Still pretty small, but it's getting bigger everyday.

[dmcantrell]

This one did not bounce. It was very preoccupied wrapping up the insect or whatever it has.

[Kenj8246]

David, that's a nice DIY. What is the diffusion material, if I may ask? It resembles the material in this diffuser from Adorama.

[snidow]

Nice work David and thanks for sharing the information on the softbox. I love these spiders and have seen many at the park, but they have not been in a position that would allow much of a shot. I'm going to keep trying though.

[dmcantrell]

Originally Posted by Kenj8246

David, that's a nice DIY. What is the diffusion material, if I may ask? It resembles the material in this diffuser from Adorama.

Thanks Ken! I used a white silk-ish material that would be used for suit linings. I got it from Joann Fabrics, and it was the closest to white that I could find, wasn't too thick, and not terribly expensive.

There's also an internal baffle inside the softbox made out of a very thin tissue-ish paper from Michaels. This helps spread the light and avoid the center-weighted hotspot.

I use this softbox a lot, because it actually fits on the flash and will stay there. It looks kind of goofy, but it seems to work pretty well and its "set it and forget it".