The Spiny Orb-Weaver

I've always called these crab spiders, but apparently there is a different group of spiders that have been given that name. These spiders, called spiny orb-weavers, are common around here but they often don't photograph well for me. Their scientific name is Gasteracantha cancriformis. Appropriately, the specific epithet, cancriformis, means crab-shaped.

For this photo, I used my macro lens with manual focus and aperture priority. I turned up the F-stop to f/14 to get a good depth of field, so the whole spider would be in focus, and then I used ISO 1600, because at f/14 not much light gets into the camera so I needed it to be sensitive. The camera chose a shutter speed of 1/50 of a second, which is good because any slower and I risked a blurry photo because I wasn't using a tripod.