Dragonfly Diaries

[Tachikoma]

Day one:

Inspired by kaska's amazing photo's, go out at lunchtime for a walk around the lake, see nothing until I spot a tiny, miniscule dragonfly (could have even been a cranefly) stop and wait, then a swarm of them appear right above my head. Swap to the 70-210 (315mm on K10D) and try to take a few photo's of something nearly 15 feet above my head without scaring it away.

[Tachikoma]

And another.

Next time, aperture priority, but with a smaller aperture, maybe f10 to get all the length in focus (also more forgiving as I am using manual focus)

[kashka]

Nice shots!..the gymnastics you had to do paid off..It would be so cool to see a swarm of them.:-)
lisa

[NonEntity1]

Tachokima,
That is a nice first shot. My "secret" for dragon flies is to figure out what their preferred perch(es) in the area are, move in close, and then hold perfectly still until they forget that you are there. It helps if you can freeze with the camera up to your eye. Pretty soon a dragonfly will land back on the perch and you are in perfect position to get your shot without alarming it.

Tim

[Tachikoma]

Thanks both, another nice day, so will see what this lunchtime brings!

I noticed what you said yesterday, they kept "dancing" and landing on the same twigs, but the darn things were really high up, nothing at eye level, hopefully today I will have longer to wander and try to find something a bit easier to shoot.

[Tachikoma]

Day two:

Decide yesterday was a lucky fluke, too hot today to catch any still long enough to take a decent shot of. Decide I need a 400mm lens... and a tripod... and to re-read the manual again...

[Tachikoma]

Another pants shot

[NonEntity1]

My favorite dragonfly lens is the Tamron Adaptall 300mm f5.6, it goes to 1:2 macro, is plenty sharp, has a flat focusing field, and seems to give the right combination of working distance and magnification for dflies. These come up on ebay and seem to go fairly inexpensively.

Tim

[Lyrics51]

Nice shots, great detail and well done on the composition.

Glenn

[Tachikoma]

Thanks!

Day three:

Darn Dragonflies still buzzing around my head and not co-operating, but found a nice Blue Ringtail Damselfly that played ball briefly.

Going to a lake tomorrow, will hopefully have more time and opportunities to get the shot I am after.