Photographing insects is a wonderful way to burn some time! I was standing on our daughter's back porch, at night, where a Silver Maple tree's leaves hung near head-level. I turned around and this arachnid almost hit my face.
With my camera just inside, I experimented with the pop-up flash brightness on my Nikon D200 until the subject was "lit just right." The spider (and I'm not sure of the species, but they're all over Eugene/Springfield, Oregon) paid little attention to me as it went about its business of spinning a web.
