The Spider Hunter, Lamma Island

On Lamma, we saw a guy with the biggest camera lens we had ever seen.

Chatted with him about it, and turns out that he's a professional spider photographer.

Asked him if it was really necessary to have such a huge lens and he said it was indeed so we found a spider (a Nephila Maculata Fabricius - as he informed us) and Richard and I both photographed it ...

My photograph
(Samsung NV10)

Richard's photograph
(Kodak Easyshare Z740)

And then our nice Spider Hunter photographed it ...

And then we compared the three photographs ...


... and there was absolutely no comparison. Mine was simply a shot of a spider while Richards was indeed of a Nephila, but exactly what kind? And then the Spider Hunter's! The leap was the same again as between mine and Richard's: his was a sublime, clearly delineated, character-rich shot of what was so obviously a Nephila Maculata Fabricius.

OK, I can now see why people spend serious money on cameras.