Photographing a dragonfly while in flight.

Male Blue Darner Dragonfly in Flight.

Since I can remember, I have always liked dragonflies.  I used to spend hours down at creeks and ponds near where I lived.  There I would observe nature's wonders and sometimes catch a few creatures to get a better look at them.  Dragonflies fascinated me the most; their quick darting aerial acrobatics spelled disaster for any insect flying in its territory.  I always enjoyed tossing small bits of wood or pieces of rock near one in flight.  It would chase the offending particle in an attempt to eat it or drive it out of its domain.

I was kayaking at a lake near where we camped a few days ago.  It was a quiet, windless day.  As is my habit when paddling, I had my camera (APS-C DSLR) and long lens (150-600 mm Tamron) with me.  I managed to get some pretty good shots of a loon, eagle, and juvenile coots.  It was when I noticed the dragonflies busily defending their airspace that inspiration hit me.

To reduce shadows on my subjects I like to have the sun directly behind me.  That can be a little tedious to figure out, so the easy solution is to point your shadow at your subject.  I paddled my Delta 12-10 kayak into a position near where a particularly active dragonfly was flying.  I set my focus to continuous 3-D mode and made sure my release mode was set to the fastest speed.  At ISO 200 and the minimum aperture of f/6.3 I was getting the very reasonable shutter speed of 1/500th of a second.  I often shoot in manual exposure mode because exposure values change rapidly depending on background brightness.

I tracked the dragonfly as it moved about - no easy task I assure you - getting a shot or two off here and there.  I was pretty close because I wanted a large image that I could make an enlargement with if I so desired.  The closer you are to a moving object the greater the swings the camera has to make to keep the subject in the viewfinder.  I wasn't always successful.  Eventually, the male blue darner hovered for just a moment.  This minuscule hiatus from its normal zig-zag pattern was all I needed.  Not only did it stop, it did so facing me.  With the sun in perfect position and a nice green out of focus background, the shot came out better than I hoped for.

It is not unusual to take thirty or forty shots in such a situation before getting something worthy of keeping.  High end DSLR cameras and mirrorless cameras with electronic shutters can do 10 to 15 frames per second with a fast shutter speed.  I usually go in short bursts, 3 to 5 images at a time, waiting for the right moment.  Decent equipment, proper technique, and patience all helps when shooting in situations like this.

I have tried this before using older equipment which had neither 3-D focusing technology or a fast internal focus lens.  It was much more difficult and I did not get the results I hoped for.  Although it is possible to do a lot with older or lower end stuff, sometimes better equipment can make the difference.  If you are like me with an eye for diamonds but a pocketbook for zirconium, you can build your system up slowly a bit at a time.  I will talk about this on my next blog.

Thanks for reading.   www.ericspix.com   Eric Svendsen