Dragonfly Special
Wednesday, 5. August 2009, 23:00:34
I've been hinting at this entry several times recently, but have always found a reason to post about something else. Today they finally make it to the blog, and if I'm honest today's shots are an improvement on previous efforts. Plus I took shots of almost nothing else. It was overcast this morning and the swallows and martins weren't on their sunny perch. By lunchtime a dull day had transformed into a summer blazer. Hot, muggy, still. Perfect for sitting by the pond and seeing what would appear.
The broad-bodied chasers from earlier in the year have largely moved away. The emperors are still around, but in small number. Right now the dominant species of dragonfly is the common darter. They're still emerging, and are actively breeding.
I'll start with a 'standard' shot of a darter perched alongside the edge of the pond. They tend to keep returning to the same spot, so once you've worked out where they like to rest it's simply a matter of waiting until one settles.
In between resting, they were busy mating. These were slightly trickier to get. I was still using manual focusing but instead of adjusting the focus I just rocked back and forth until they were nice and sharp in the viewfinder. It's not a technique that has a hugely high hit rate (my recycle bin is full to bursting), but it is a lot more successful than trying to autofocus a small moving object through the plants
I hardly need say that I have rather a lot of shots very similar to the ones above. Most of them are variations of the perched image. There was one brief sequence though when instead of landing parallel to the camera, a darter flew directly in from behind the stick and stared down the lens, looking for all the world like a motorcyclist, complete with crash helmet. You can also see one of the easier identification features in these shots: the yellow stripe on the outside of the dragonfly's legs
Camera note: all shots were manually focused using the Sigma 105mm F2.8 EX DG macro lens with the Kenko Teleplus 1.4x Pro 300 DG teleconverter attached (which gave me a little more working distance).
The broad-bodied chasers from earlier in the year have largely moved away. The emperors are still around, but in small number. Right now the dominant species of dragonfly is the common darter. They're still emerging, and are actively breeding.
I'll start with a 'standard' shot of a darter perched alongside the edge of the pond. They tend to keep returning to the same spot, so once you've worked out where they like to rest it's simply a matter of waiting until one settles.
In between resting, they were busy mating. These were slightly trickier to get. I was still using manual focusing but instead of adjusting the focus I just rocked back and forth until they were nice and sharp in the viewfinder. It's not a technique that has a hugely high hit rate (my recycle bin is full to bursting), but it is a lot more successful than trying to autofocus a small moving object through the plants
I hardly need say that I have rather a lot of shots very similar to the ones above. Most of them are variations of the perched image. There was one brief sequence though when instead of landing parallel to the camera, a darter flew directly in from behind the stick and stared down the lens, looking for all the world like a motorcyclist, complete with crash helmet. You can also see one of the easier identification features in these shots: the yellow stripe on the outside of the dragonfly's legs
Camera note: all shots were manually focused using the Sigma 105mm F2.8 EX DG macro lens with the Kenko Teleplus 1.4x Pro 300 DG teleconverter attached (which gave me a little more working distance).
WIDGETIZE