dragon/damselfly tips

[squishy]

one of my photographic aims this year is to get a good close up of a dragon/damsel fly, and i just wanted to ask if any of you more experienced photographers have any advice?

these are the best i've managed yet:





the DoF isn't very good on those, but i find that tricky sometimes with my S9600/dcr-250 set up



any advice would be very welcome

thanks

[RogerTheCat]

One of the basic rules when photographing wildlife or people is to get the eyes sharp even if other areas are out of focus. In the second picture you have achieved the equivalent of this by getting the back of the head in focus and taken a picture I quite like. On the first picture the focus area is around the front leg and the front of the leaf and so this part of the photograph is sharp. Ideally the focus should have been on the eyes. If you camera shows the focus point through the eyepiece try and line it up with the eyes when you take a shot which is something I always try and do.

DOf is always a problem with macro photography. You could try using a higher ISO setting to allow smaller shutter aperture but the trade off with this is that higher ISO may lead to noise. Another option is the use of a tripod or monopod to stabilise the camera so you can get away with lower shutter speeds

Also have a play around at home with camera. When I get my macro lens I took multiple photographs of various static objects in the house altering ISO, aperture, shutter speeds and focus point to so what happened. By doing that you get an idea of what settings to use when out in the field.

Finally there is no substitute for practice.

[Fourwings]

I agree entirely with what Roger has said above.
In addition to this my best advice would be to ditch the DCR close-up lens that you are using, they have a very small DOF and to be honest are pretty useless if you want to get a whole Dragonfly in focus.
Use the macro mode on your S9600 combined with the zoom set at max, set the camera to mode A (apeture priority) and then play with the f stops to get the required DOF, between f5.6 and f10 should get you pleasing results depending on the light conditions, watch the shutter speeds offered by the camera carefully, the higher the better, anything above 1/300th sec will give good results handheld.
Once you have your images dont be affraid to crop to get the desired result, I did this with spectacular results for years with both a Nikon 5700 and a Fuji S7000 before I bought my DSLR's and Sigma 150 macro.

I took this image of a Brown Hawker with a Fuji S700 using the technique described above.


Good luck and let us know how you are getting on.

[squishy]

thanks for that both of you i will try it without the raynox, as you suggested. I only really got that lens to use with smaller subjects where i couldn't get good quality with just my camera, but the camera alone should be good for larger things like dragons and damsels another advantage of that is that i don't have to get as close

do you think it would work better at around 200mm on my camera, as the macro ratio gets worse as you zoom, and it is sharper at the length?

thanks!

(btw, that photo is fantastic fourwings! )

[tinca]

I have been chasing damsels and dragons this year with my macro lens 100mm canon great lens by the way hummed and harred between this and the sigma got to try them both and made my choice
i was given a strange but good piece of advice " go out on a windy day and find a sunny spot sheltered from the wind near water the dragons and damsels will be there and they dont fly off as much and tend to come back if they do"
i know macro and windy days dont seem to go together but i have had more good shots like this than on the perfect windless days.

[Susie]

That's an excellent piece of advice and not strange at all if you think about it. The creatures don't want to get damaged by high winds and would prefer to sit it out if they can. I managed to get some good (for me) photos when we had very high winds a couple of weeks back.

Thanks for articulating it, Tinca, because although I went on instinct when taking the pics I had never thought of it as succintly as you put it above. I just thought, "where would I be if I were a dragonfly?" lol

[glsammy]

This certainly works for me. I always look in which direction the wind is blowing. Which ever way it is, I can guarantee that the insects I'm after will be on the sheltered side.
Another tip. Go out just after it has been raining, or first thing in the morning. You'll find damselflies far more compliant and reluctant to fly away.
Once they've heated up, it gets harder and harder to get good close ups.
Once you've found an area where there are plenty around, watch carefully for one that has caught a fly. Again they'll not move unless they feel really threatened.
That's how I got this shot a couple of days ago. To get it I had to be no more than four inches away, yet despite me taking many shots with flash, the insect refused to budge until it had finished its meal.

[galanthus]

Sometimes it also pays to sit by your pond with a cuppa and wait with your camera and macro lens

[Beekeeper]

Originally Posted by galanthus

Sometimes it also pays to sit by your pond with a cuppa and wait with your camera and macro lens

It would be just my luck that whatever i wanted to take a picture of landed in the cuppa.

BK

[Gill Catton]

I find the DCR 150 much easier to work with than the 250, and yes I try to catch the mornings when its cooler too.