flowers, bugs, macro Argiope aurantia

I found this scary looking spider in my backyard today. Looks like

a Argiope aurantia, having some lunch. Possibly a St Andrew's cross

spider, although these seem to be found in Australia. Although

they're apparently quite benign, this thing still gives me the

creeps.

Very sharp image. Was this natural lighting, or did you use a flash?

thanks for your comment. Natural light on this one, and hand-held (to catch him quickly). This was the sharpest of 10 that I took; still not perfectly sharp. A couple with flash were overexposed.

The shallow depth of field works well in isolating the subject. But oddly enough the body of the spider isn't very sharp and seems slightly out of focus. Could be explained by any number of reasons I imagine from a bad scan to a highly scaled down image to just being out of focus in the first place. Striking subject nonetheless.