DIF and a Fly

Great capture Alistair. Like the fly as well.

Great pictures

How the hell do you get those kind of images?

Everything flying insect wise I have seen I cannot capture or get remotely close enough to without disturbing them

agreed, very good series.

A very good DiF shot, well done The first of the fly shots is the better one.

Linda

*Sonic* wrote in post #3875849
Great pictures

How the hell do you get those kind of images?

Everything flying insect wise I have seen I cannot capture or get remotely close enough to without disturbing them

Thanks brian and sonic for the comments.

Sonic, the dragon was shot with the Tamron 90mm Macro. For that one i watched where it was flying around a small pond and crouched down behind some grass where it stopped and hovered for a short while each time it passed, i was probably about 2 feet from it. The fly was shot with the MPE-65 which i just approached very slowly till i was close enouh to take a few shots. As long as you dont make any sudden movements they are usually ok.

Alistair.

Thanks linda and RM much appreciated.

Alistair.

Thanks Allistair

I don't have a Macro lens, how do they differ from standard lenses of the same focal length?

I do have extension tubes, but found you really do need to get up close to get a decent shot, plus manual focus too

great catch alistair. haven't been able to capture a dg inflight yet. like the close up of the fly also

Bill

Great shots Alistair.
@Sonic, I shot a southern hawker dragonfly in flight last week (https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=370337) with nothing more than a 75-300 zoom. The lens will close focus to about 1/4 size at 5 feet which is enough for a large dragonfly. Depending on your lens you may find a small extension tube will get you about the right distance away. AF doesn't work well because the subject is moving too fast and is too small to get a good lock on it. So, I preset the lens to around 150-200mm focal length, turned off AF and set the focus ring to somewhere around where I had seen the dragonfly pass relatively close by. Waited until it approached and paused, a quick twist with the focus ring and snapped it. You'll miss them often and get loads of duffers too but if you're lucky you'll get one that's accurate enough to crop. The shot in the above link was good enough to print 8"x10"
As for macro lenses compared to normal primes the only real difference is that they will focus much closer in order to give a 1:1 image on your sensor. An image from a 22mm long subject will fill the 1.6x crop sensor on your 30D. Many people get macro lenses for non-macro subjects because they are invariably very good lenses.

Thanks Eccles (sorry for the now appearing thread hijack )

My biggest lens at the moment is the 80-200mm until I find a 70-300 Sigma AP DG Macro

I know my current Sigma has a Macro switch on it, and I believe it is 1:2 or 1:3

I guess with this kind of photography there are going to be lots of duffers until you get that ace shot, which you seemingly have done with the link you posted

Lovely captures- That fly is quite a magnificent beast- I assume it's a Tephritid fly but haven't seen one with antennae quite like that.
Brian V.

Nice series - particularly impressed with the shots of the fly - the MPE-65 certainly opens up a lot of possibilities - the more I see from it the more I want one!

Stunning DIF shot and and a nice fly shot as well

Dave