Golden Silk Spider

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I shot this yesterday hiking a trail. It appears to me to be a Golden Silk Spider / Trichonephila clavipes. My first spider identification, or any bug for that matter. Comments welcomed.

Link used to identify. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trichonephila_clavipes

[Geoff F]

Maybe the highlights are slightly over exposed, but it was a very tricky scene to photograph. Sometimes with this sort of difficult situation I try bracketed exposures then hand merge them together using masking, after auto aligning the layers

[escape]

Maybe the highlights are slightly over exposed, but it was a very tricky scene to photograph. Sometimes with this sort of difficult situation I try bracketed exposures then hand merge them together using masking, after auto aligning the layers

Thank you Geoff for your helpful comment. I've never processed bracketed exposures as you suggested. Looking forward to giving it a try. Much appreciated. Daniel

[DanK]

Another option is to carry a very small collapsible diffuser. Then you can open it to shield the subject from direct sunlight. Of course, this only works with a patient subject.

[Geoff F]

I have successfully used that method with flowers, which don't run/fly away while you are setting up the equipment or accidentally cast a shadow which frightens the subject. Lastolite (and probably others) produce spring steel edged diffusers which can be folded up for easy carrying.

If there is likely to be subject movement problems with bracketed exposures, I often expose for the highlights when shooting in Raw mode then create and merge two conversions. One converted for highlights and the other for shadows/midtones. Not exactly full HDR but it usually works better than just a single image.