Post your Dragonflies and Damselflies

I dunno... too complicated.... I just approach carefully and can get within inches.

Photo from Archibald's gallery.
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Pretty darn close!

SYS wrote in post #18955800

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Very nicely composed.

Just curious - do other people's pics look a bit dark to you?

Archibald wrote in post #18955834
Very nicely composed.

Just curious - do other people's pics look a bit dark to you?

No, not at all. Are you asking this because mine tends to be on the lighter side, by any chance? I know that my photos on my wife's laptop appear lighter while they look fine in others. I process my photos on calibrated screen.

SYS wrote in post #18955837
No, not at all. Are you asking this because mine tends to be on the lighter side, by any chance? I know that my photos on my wife's laptop appear lighter while they look fine in others. I process my photos on calibrated screen.

Ah, yes... some of yours seem lighter than those of others.

SYS wrote in post #18956322

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Nice DIF!

Nice, but it's relatively easy to get that close to some individuals of Sympetrum species, but much harder to get close to a lot of Aeshnids and say Calopteryx species damselflies. Sympetrum species which tend to get called Darters on our side of the pond, and Meadowhawks on your side of the pond tend to be found in big numbers, and bask on flat surfaces. What's more they will often keep returning to the same basking spot. So even if you made a clumsy approach causing it to fly off, it will soon return, and what's more since you were already in place, it will just regard you as part of the surroundings.

As I've explained when I've taken workshops, it doesn't really matter how you've actually got close to that dragonfly, because once you are close to it, the longer you are there, the more habituated the dragonfly will become to your presence, the more it will ignore you as just part of the surroundings. Once you've got your lens very close it's no problem and I've photographed them with the MP-E 65mm, wide-angle lenses, compact cameras, phones etc. The method is not magical, it's just a reliable method of getting close to a wide variety of different species. The slow steady approach recommended in a lot of books will work sometimes, and as I say, once you are close, the dragonfly will rapidly become habituated to your presence, the longer you are there. It's just that this approach is nowhere near as reliable as the method I've developed, where you can reliably get very close to a wide variety of species if you use it rigorously.

Where it becomes difficult is when you want to get photographs of particular species. Sometimes you might never have seen that species before, have only seen it a few times, might be visiting a special site where there are particular rare species, which you might only get a brief sighting of. You know if you mess up your approach, and it flies off that you won't get another chance, or might be lucky to get another chance. Also many species won't keep landing in the same spot repeatedly like the Sympetrum species you posted. Some of the large Aeshna species will take off at your approach when you're over 30 foot/10m away. This where you need a very reliable means of getting close. This is what my method is meant to address.

The method might not be of interest to you if you're only interested in getting photos of whatever you can get close to. However, if you're a photographer who goes looking to get photos of certain species, a naturalist or biological recorder who needs a record shot, then it might be important to have a reliable method of getting close to whatever particular individual dragonfly you want a photograph of. I'm one of the latter group, and collect biological records. I've got many first records for species on sites, county firsts, the first and last records for species in a year. I regularly get the first and last records for particular species for the whole of the UK for that year. Again this might not be of interest to you, but it is to some people. I lead dragonfly walks, and sometimes people drive hundreds of miles to see particular species. So my method is for them, to allow them to reliably get a photograph of what they've travelled hundreds of miles to see.

All I can add is you guys are getting some great shots!

SteB wrote in post #18956398
Nice, but it's relatively easy to get that close to some individuals of Sympetrum species, but much harder to get close to a lot of Aeshnids and say Calopteryx species damselflies. Sympetrum species which tend to get called Darters on our side of the pond, and Meadowhawks on your side of the pond tend to be found in big numbers, and bask on flat surfaces. What's more they will often keep returning to the same basking spot. So even if you made a clumsy approach causing it to fly off, it will soon return, and what's more since you were already in place, it will just regard you as part of the surroundings.

As I've explained when I've taken workshops, it doesn't really matter how you've actually got close to that dragonfly, because once you are close to it, the longer you are there, the more habituated the dragonfly will become to your presence, the more it will ignore you as just part of the surroundings. Once you've got your lens very close it's no problem and I've photographed them with the MP-E 65mm, wide-angle lenses, compact cameras, phones etc. The method is not magical, it's just a reliable method of getting close to a wide variety of different species. The slow steady approach recommended in a lot of books will work sometimes, and as I say, once you are close, the dragonfly will rapidly become habituated to your presence, the longer you are there. It's just that this approach is nowhere near as reliable as the method I've developed, where you can reliably get very close to a wide variety of species if you use it rigorously.

Where it becomes difficult is when you want to get photographs of particular species. Sometimes you might never have seen that species before, have only seen it a few times, might be visiting a special site where there are particular rare species, which you might only get a brief sighting of. You know if you mess up your approach, and it flies off that you won't get another chance, or might be lucky to get another chance. Also many species won't keep landing in the same spot repeatedly like the Sympetrum species you posted. Some of the large Aeshna species will take off at your approach when you're over 30 foot/10m away. This where you need a very reliable means of getting close. This is what my method is meant to address.

The method might not be of interest to you if you're only interested in getting photos of whatever you can get close to. However, if you're a photographer who goes looking to get photos of certain species, a naturalist or biological recorder who needs a record shot, then it might be important to have a reliable method of getting close to whatever particular individual dragonfly you want a photograph of. I'm one of the latter group, and collect biological records. I've got many first records for species on sites, county firsts, the first and last records for species in a year. I regularly get the first and last records for particular species for the whole of the UK for that year. Again this might not be of interest to you, but it is to some people. I lead dragonfly walks, and sometimes people drive hundreds of miles to see particular species. So my method is for them, to allow them to reliably get a photograph of what they've travelled hundreds of miles to see.

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These are amazing. I wish I had more patience (and time).

AnnieMacD wrote in post #18956638
These are amazing. I wish I had more patience (and time).

Agreed!