Shooting garden bugs: macro photography of Auckland's insects and spiders

Once you’ve sorted out a cheap way to get close, the next question is what to point it at. You don’t need a trip to the bush. A normal Auckland section, with a hedge, a few pots and a deck, is home to more small subjects than you could shoot in a year. Here’s where to look, how to get sharp results, and how to keep both you and the bugs out of trouble.

If you haven’t got close-up gear yet, start with our macro on a budget post, which compares extension tubes, close-up filters and reversed lenses.

Finding your subjects

Orb-weavers at dawn

The common garden orb-web spider builds or repairs its wheel-shaped web at night, so first thing in the morning is when webs are freshest. On a still, clear morning they’re often strung with dew, which turns a plain web into a necklace of tiny lenses. Look between shrubs, along fence lines and across gaps by the clothesline. The spider itself is usually tucked into a curled leaf or a corner nearby, so follow the signal line from the hub.

White-tailed and nursery-web spiders

White-tails are slim, dark spiders with a pale mark at the tip of the abdomen. They hide in cracks by day and hunt other spiders at night, so a torch-lit walk around the outside walls after dark is the best way to find one. Use a longer working distance than usual and let it walk rather than poking it into position.

Nursery-web spiders are native, and their silk tents are easy to spot on shrub tips from summer into autumn. The female carries her egg sac in her jaws, then builds the nursery web around it as hatching gets close, and stays nearby to guard the young. It’s a wonderful thing to photograph, but don’t open the tent or brush past it. Shoot from the outside, with the light behind the silk.

Monarch caterpillars

If you or a neighbour grow swan plants, you’ve got a ready-made studio. Monarch caterpillars feed on them through the warmer months, and their stripes look great against plain green. Watch for the jade-green chrysalis hanging under a leaf or a fence rail, and come back each day. Catching the butterfly drying its wings after it emerges is one of the most satisfying garden shots there is.

Wētā

Tree wētā spend the day in holes in trees, old borer tunnels and wētā motels, and come out at night to feed on leaves. A gentle torch beam on a pōhutukawa or karamu trunk after dark often turns one up. Males have big jaws and can give a sharp nip, so look, don’t handle. A wētā motel on a garden tree gives you a reliable subject and something to show the kids.

Wasps on flowers

On a warm afternoon, flowering herbs, fennel and ivy pull in wasps of several kinds. The black-and-yellow ones you see most are usually German or common wasps, while the slimmer, longer-legged ones with dangling legs in flight are paper wasps. A telephoto zoom with a close-up filter is the better tool here than a short macro lens, because it keeps you well back.

Ants

Ants are great practice for timing. Look for trails along a deck board or fence post, get low, shoot side-on, and work quickly.

Technique that works in a real garden

Use the cold of early morning

Insects are cold-blooded. On a cool morning, before the sun hits the garden, many sit still and move slowly. That’s the kind way to get a calm subject. You don’t need to chill them yourself (please don’t), and you get softer light and dew as a bonus. By mid-morning, flies and wasps warm up and are much harder to frame.

Diffused flash

At macro distances you’ll want f/8 to f/11 for depth of field, and that soaks up light fast. A small flash freezes both your shake and the subject’s movement, but bare flash gives harsh highlights and black backgrounds. Put something soft and broad between the flash and the bug: a commercial diffuser, a foam panel, or a home-made one from baking paper over a cut-down takeaway container. The bigger the diffuser and the closer it is to the subject, the softer the light.

If the background keeps going black, slow the shutter a little or raise the ISO so some ambient light registers behind the subject.

Focus stacking, when it suits

Even at f/11 the sharp zone is tiny. For subjects that truly stay put, such as a cold, sleepy fly, a chrysalis or an empty web, take a series of frames while moving focus a fraction each time, then blend them in stacking software. On live, moving insects it rarely works. Instead, focus on the eyes, shoot a short burst while rocking gently forward, and keep the frame where the eyes are sharp.

Whatever the method, get down to the subject’s eye level. A caterpillar shot from above is a record; one shot from its own level has a sense of place.

Safety and respect

The basic rule: photograph things where they are, and leave them as you found them.

Don’t disturb nests. That goes for spider nurseries, ant nests and especially wasp nests.
Keep your distance from wasps. German and common wasps are introduced pests in New Zealand. They harm native insects and birds, and they defend their nests hard. Unlike honey bees, a wasp can sting more than once, and stings can cause allergic reactions in some people. Never shoot near a nest entrance, and never shine a torch into one. DOC’s wasp page explains which species are pests and how to tell them apart.
White-tails, without the myths. White-tailed spiders came from Australia and have been recorded here since the 1870s. Their bite is genuinely painful, but research on confirmed bites has not linked them to the flesh-eating ulcers they’re often blamed for. Te Papa’s white-tail spider article is a good read on what’s known. Still, give them room and don’t handle them.
Redbacks. These are also Australian. They have established populations in a few parts of New Zealand, mostly Central Otago and New Plymouth, and they’re not a usual Auckland garden find. Their bite needs medical attention. If you think you’ve found one, leave it alone and report it.
Handle as little as possible. Moving a subject to a “better” leaf stresses it and often ends with it dropping off, or worse.

When your subject is really a problem

Sometimes the most interesting thing in the garden isn’t a photo opportunity at all. A wasp nest in the wall beside the back door, or in the ground under the kids’ trampoline, isn’t something to creep up on with a camera. The same goes for a spider, cockroach or ant problem that keeps coming back inside no matter how often you clean. That’s the point to put the camera down and call a local service such as Pest Control Auckland (pestcontrolauckland.nz), who can deal with the nest or the source of the problem safely. You can always photograph the empty nest afterwards, from a sensible distance.

A simple routine to start

Go out early on a still morning with a torch, a flash and a diffuser.
Check the webs first, then the swan plants, then the undersides of leaves.
Work slowly, shoot bursts, and review on the spot, zooming in to check the eyes.
Come back at night for wētā and white-tails.

You’ll be surprised how quickly you get a portfolio without leaving home. If you’d like a slower, more patient subject in between, our timber textures post has plenty of close-up ideas that don’t crawl away.