As I arrived at destination up the hill in Wendell, I noticed a huge signature spider had taken up residence on a huge web attached to the portable loo in front of the house being built next door.

Also known as a yellow garden spider or Argiope aurantia, these orb weavers are known for their beautiful and large webs with what appears to be a zippered centre section of the web meant to encourage birds to avoid flying blindly into the spider’s web.

They look scary as hell and are pretty large as spiders go but they’re actually quite harmless and very efficient at making sure any of the nasty bugs that blunder into the web don’t tell the tale of it! It’s a rare fall that I won’t have at least two of them setting up shop on the opposite sides of the house and making a pig’s breakfast of whatever wanders their way.

But as remarkable as this spider was, I have to say that I’m truly impressed by this iPhone 8 Plus and it’s capacity for macro photography.

Sure, it’s not the D850 with the 105mm f/2.8 Micro-Nikkor lens attached but it’s pretty darned good for convenient and portable!

I was able to focus very close to the spider at a pretty decent distance and draw out some pretty amazing detail.

Happy hunting…feel free to hoover up as many of those bugs as your web can handle! 🙂