While looking back at some of my photos from Costa Rica, I ran across this one I’d forgotten about and that I’d never processed. We were out shooting birds one afternoon along a rural road. We photographed toucans and macaws and other species that afternoon. I noticed Diane, one of the other photographers in the group, aways down the road, not focusing her camera up into the trees but aiming her lens at something near the ground. I wandered over and found this huge spider, a golden orb weaver (Nephila clavipes). Females make large aerial webs and they usually perch in the center waiting for prey. The tiny male is visible near the center top of the shot. The females range in size from 24 to 40mm. I don’t remember how big this one was, but she was pretty darn big. I was glad my camera and lens were between me and her!
I made a few adjustments in Lightroom and then edited it using a High Pass filter and blended it using Soft Light in Photoshop to make the spider stand out a bit more, not that she needed intensifying. I took this shot with the D800, 80-400 mm lens with a 1.4x teleconverter attached. It is not cropped.
Oh how I HATE spiders😁