photoartflightSpangled Skimmers At Davidson’s Mill Pond Park
Posted on July 8, 2018
The Dragonflies are abundant at Davidson’s Mill Pond Park giving photographers a lot of photo opportunities. The temperature here has finally gotten down to normal temperatures for this time of year. With the heat index’s around 110 degrees for most of the week it was not a great time to photograph outdoors chasing dragonflies. There are a lot of Spangled Skimmers in the two main ponds. So this post will highlight these dragonflies. This is the first time I have come across these dragonflies. It is interesting to see a few different varieties of dragonflies by moving to a new home only 65 miles from where I used to be.
Smiling Blue Dasher Dragonfly
Posted on July 6, 2018
For some reason Blue Dasher Dragonflies seem to look like they are smiling when you see them head on, giving an impression of a Happy Dragonfly. This Blue Dasher was out in a pond at a public county park, probably 6 to 8 feet from the shoreline. The featured image is a 4 shot Image Stack, manually focused and assembled in Photoshop. I used a combination of a 400mm lens, an extension tube, then a 1.4x teleconverter to actually enlarge the image on the sensor with the extension tube added. Sometimes I add another extension tube between the teleconverter and the camera body which enlargens the image on the sensor even more. But narrows your focus range even more and you tend to need a fill flash because of loss of light reaching the sensor to get a usable exposure for a subject that is somewhat moving its head or wings or its perch is moving in a breeze. Plus the added extension tubes also takes away light reaching the sensor. Sort of like the “Old” days when you were using a 4×5 or 8×10 view camera when you had the bellows racked out and had to adjust your exposure because of light loss from the distance of the lens and the film plane. By moving teleconverter and extension tubes you can get a variety of focus windows and enlargement of your final image on the sensor.
Blue Dasher 4 img Stack for Blue Dasher, then 4 image pano for the stick the Dasher was on. So 2 techniques used for final image.
Older shot showing similar Setup with one 1.4x teleconverter plus fill flash needed for using two separated extension tubes.
Another extreme setup with 2 extension tubes and 2 teleconverters. This really enlargens the image on the sensor but you need a fill flash or a very high ISO setting and has a very limited focus window.
Dragonfly setup at my old pond
Dragonfly Closeups & Image Stacked Closeups
Posted on July 12, 2017
Some of the time, when photographing Dragonflies, I need to get closer, but water or something is in the way. Or I just want more working distance and do not want to use a macro lens with skidish subjects. After photographing them for over 10 or 12 years I have come up with different solutions. And I want a really soft looking backgrounds! Or I am at a National Wildlife Refuge where you can’t go off the Drive, so you need more reach for the different dragons you see there. So I have come up with different combinations to solve that problem. The more you experiment, the more combinations you come up with. I sometimes use a telephoto lens, usually 400mm f/4, an extension tube, a 1.4x teleconverter, and then a longer extension tube. Sometimes I add another 1.4x teleconverter at the camera. Than add a flash with a Better Beamer Flash extender because with the extension tubes I loose a lot of light, so I need more power to light my subject Dragonfly. This gives me a working distance, depending on which extension tubes and combinations of teleconverters I use, from 2 to 8 ft or even more, but filling the frame with my subject small Dragonfly. The Blue Dashers are about 1.5″ long. Some ot the others are a little larger and the Damselflies are smaller. The extension tube spacing actually enlarges the Dragonfly image on the sensor. But you do loose a lot of light. It seems awkward, but once you get used to the combination you use, it gets easier to use in the field. Many times I actually shoot a stack series of focus point images along a dragonfly to get a sharp final image from head to tail, wingtip to wingtip or specific areas I want in Photoshop. I probably posted too many images, but it shows the effects and details I was going for. They are such fascinating photo subjects! Sorry for such a long Post!
Extreme setup with 2 teleconverters, for closer focusing and extreme magnification.
My Standard setup for closeup Dragonfly photos. The wider teleconverter next to the camera body magnifies the image a little more and you can get even more image filling frames.
This Dragonfly was eating another dragonfly about 15 ft away
Hummingbird Moth on Milk Thistle
Posted on September 20, 2016
We went to Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania to go through their 86 acre Meadow Gardens. It is more known for their Formal Gardens and Conservatory, but we enjoy the Meadows. With more than three miles of walking and hiking trails which lead visitors to the diverse habitats found throughout the Meadow Gardens terrain. I found a few Hummingbird Moths working an area with a lot of Milk Thistles. I raised the ISO to 1250 and was shooting at 1/500 sec to 1/1000 sec, and a few above that, but could still not capture their wings. They were really fast movers, but they really liked these Thistles so they stayed for quite a while. They were darting back and forth so their was little time to compose and shoot before they darted off to another spot. They were still fun to photograph. Next time I could try fill flash, but they move so quickly it would be limiting because of the recycling time of the flash. All shots handheld, shot with a 300mm lens with extension tubes to get closer. These moths seem to be super active and non-stop movers!
Blue Dasher Wing Detail
Posted on November 29, 2015
Closeup detail of a Blue Dasher Dragonfly Wing. This dragonfly is only about an inch and a half long. Hard to get closeup wing detail with a normal macro lens, especially without disturbing your subject or if there is a distance of water between you and your subject. From commercial work I have a wide assortment of macro lenses to chose from, but for dragonflies my favorite setup is a hybrid setup of telephoto lens, extension tube, 1.4X teleconverter and another extension tube. I also use fill flash with a Better Beamer flash extender. If you use this combination it is manual focus and exposure is determined from your histogram as you are pushing the auto exposure and auto focus. By using 2 extension tubes on each end of the teleconverter you are actually enlarging the image on the sensor. With trial and error you soon become used to using this combination and exposures become consistent. But you can get closeups of subjects that are usually out of reach. Also handy to do a 3 or 5 shot panorama or a stacked multi-shot image of a small subject.
5 shot panorama
Extreme setup with 2 1.4X teleconverters with extension tubes, showing placement of tubes & teleconverters. Usually I use only one extension tube. So to start use only the first one between the extension tubes and get used exposure and focusing.
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