Summer 2012 was a good year for Crab Spiders
This year was a lifer as far as Crab Spiders are concerned. For years I kept an eye out for them as they successfully eluded me. This summer I just found them everywhere I looked. Although I was fortunate in finding them I was always less than in the ideal situation to capture a great image. From only having a telephoto lens on me to high wind gusts making the capture a little less successful.
Crab Spider in a yellow flower petal
Regardless of the conditions I took the pictures and aimed for the best possible results under the circumstances. This one above in the yellow petal was just tiny. The winds were blowing up to 20Mph and the lighting conditions inadequate, The spider was tucked deep in the petal. With only the Micro Nikkor 105m VR I had to get pretty close to get a decent magnification. I was lucky as it didn’t scare off as easily as other Crab Spiders often do. This allowed me plenty of time to make the best out of the situation. I took a few images between wind gusts and the end result was fairly decent.
Crab Spider Instagram
In the above Image all I had was a Nikkor 300mm lens coupled to a 1.4X TC. This particular Crab Spider gave us quite a show as it took on various insects twice its own size. Standing at the top of a Daisy blowing in the wind it was just as challenging to capture from a distance with a telephoto lens…
PHOTO INFO: FIRST IMAGE – Captured with a Micro Nikkor 105mm VR mounted to a D300s. A Nikon SB-900 Flash was used remotely operated through CLS to provide additional lighting and compensate for back-lighting.
PHOTO INFO: SECOND IMAGE – Nikkor 300mm f/4 + TC1.4X mounted to a D300s
–
Seen in my contacts’ photos. ( ?² )