A member of the orb weaver (Araneidae) family. I think it might be Uncle Earl.

A recent article on making a macro lens using a Pringles can led me to a fortunate discovery that may be of use, or at least give ideas, to someone else, so I'll pass it along...

It turns out that a lens hood accessory I had lying around from a circa-1960s Pentax SLR can be jury-rigged to allow the use of that camera's filters and lenses with my Sony Mavica CD500 digicam (which otherwise would need a $35 adaptor from Sony to accept accessories). The hood, intended to keep stray light out of lenses, is just a metal tube with threading on one end that screws into the filter threads on the lenses (not all hoods use threading, though -- I also have one from another camera that uses a compression fitting.)

By lining the inside with a 3cm wide strip of felt cut to the inner diameter, the hood can be slid, thread-end pointing out, snugly onto the telescoping-lens base of the Mavica. It's just the right length to allow clearance for the moving lens, which can now be enclosed and protected with a filter.

Besides filters, lenses can also be screwed onto the hood's threads, albeit backwards. What use is a backwards lens? Macro photography! Reversing a standard lens turns it into a serviceable macro lens. (For those with the same camera: Turn the macro mode on and zoom all the way in. Do not use the "Conversion Lens" mode.) Wide angle lenses give even better magnification, but will have greater vignetting. Oh, and try a telephoto lens if you feel burdened by too many megapixels.

Anyway, here's some pics taken with my newly-discovered macro lens:

Same spider as above, only more annoyed.

Cellar spider (Pholcus phalangioides). Those might be unfertilized eggs just visible in her abdomen. The splotch on her head is a sharp-edged surface marking blurred due to being outside the very narrow depth of field.

Salt (taken with wide angle lens.)

Cheerios contaminated with microscopic Black Helicopters (as are most breakfast cereals).