Tuesday 2 June 2009

Hi all, various PC probs have kept me from posting on here for a while, but I've been doing lots of butterfly/dragonfly photography, so there may be a bit more retrospective stuff to come.

Let's start on Sunday 24th May when I went to Heath and Reach, targetting Downy Emerald. At first none were flying, but there were two Hairy Hawkers on the pool, and I tried a new technique, pre-focussing on a likely distance, setting the camera to manual focus, and blasting away when one came vaguely into range.

This wasn't altogether successful...

Then I found one landed. It was about 3 metres up and not at a good angle or in great light...

...but better things come to those who wait - an ovipositing female landed at my feet:

Then Downy Emeralds started appearing. Again the flight shot techniques failed dismally, but eventually I picked one up landing. Even though it was nearly 10 metres away across the pool, I blasted away with a few shots. It's in here, honest:

...but as you probably couldn't find it (neither could I at first, I thought it must have flown before I started shooting), here it is zoomed right in, though still not very big:

I went round to the nearest spot I could get to, couldn't see it, and repeated the process about five times, triangulating branches and stuff, until eventually I found it through a tunnel through the foliage as I teetered on the water's edge, and got a halfway decent shot:


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