This is a male Cobra Clubtail dragonfly that I photographed about a week ago along the bank of the Little River below the spillway at Millwood Dam, Little River County, AR.
Clubtails like this one can be most annoyingly skittish but, as a group, many of them will fly in a straight line for comparatively short distances so, with patience, it's possible to capture some nice images.
Nikon DSLR, 300mm f4 Nikon + 1.4X Nikon teleconverter, Nikon SB-900 flash, and Gitzo tripod. Slight crop for composition and a few troublesome white spots removed. Flash used as main light with ambient light set for -2/3 stop underexposure. I might should have gone -1.
Ive tried to get shots of dragonflys a couple of times and I always give up. It seems like the only time they sit still long enough is on the end of my fishing pole when i don't have a camera. Good job.
Larry-I wish the DOF could've been greater too but such is the nature of dragonfly photography from this shooting angle. DOF razor thin to begin with and doesn't improve all that much even if smaller apertures are selected. The aperture for this shot was somewhere between 11 and 16 and a good portion of both wings isn't in focus but the head and body is. That's the compromise I settled for. If you shoot straight down on a dragonfly, you can significantly improve what's in focus but it usually comes at the expense of a relatively uninteresting photograph.
Scott/Jon-Photographing dragonflies is certainly not without challenge but a close-focusing 300mm lens is just about the perfect tool. I usually use one of Nikon's D3 series cameras so the 1.4 teleconverter comes in handy. Using a 300mm lens on a Nikon D300/Canon 50, etc. can give you a little more working distance which is especially helpful with some of the more skittish varieties. Having a lot of patience is a big asset as is the ability to hold your tongue when a dragonfly you've been stalking for 45 minutes without getting into good camera range suddenly decides to land on your hand. That actually happened once.
I've had some success shooting dragonflies with my Canon 500 f/4. An extension tube sometimes helps to get a bit closer, but shallow DOF is the norm at high telephoto focal lengths.
Discussion
6 repliesClubtails like this one can be most annoyingly skittish but, as a group, many of them will fly in a straight line for comparatively short distances so, with patience, it's possible to capture some nice images.
Nikon DSLR, 300mm f4 Nikon + 1.4X Nikon teleconverter, Nikon SB-900 flash, and Gitzo tripod. Slight crop for composition and a few troublesome white spots removed. Flash used as main light with ambient light set for -2/3 stop underexposure. I might should have gone -1.
I wish the DOF were greater.
the fisch
Scott/Jon-Photographing dragonflies is certainly not without challenge but a close-focusing 300mm lens is just about the perfect tool. I usually use one of Nikon's D3 series cameras so the 1.4 teleconverter comes in handy. Using a 300mm lens on a Nikon D300/Canon 50, etc. can give you a little more working distance which is especially helpful with some of the more skittish varieties. Having a lot of patience is a big asset as is the ability to hold your tongue when a dragonfly you've been stalking for 45 minutes without getting into good camera range suddenly decides to land on your hand. That actually happened once.