Dragonfly: can anyone help ID this one?

[DanK]

Dragonflies and damselflies love to sun themselves on my wooden dock, precisely when the sun is too intense for good photos. Still, I take it where I can get them. I don't know what type of dragonfly this is. C&C welcome, of course.

[deetheturk]

Another nice capture Dan, can't help with the I.D. though, maybe Geoff or Jack can help?

[Nicks Pics]

Can't help with bug ID there, but I was wondering how close can your camera focus on macro with zoom? Been trying a little macro myself and zoom seems to be necessary usually, but then you can't get as close which semi defeats the purpose of it.

[Dave Humphries]

In my limited experience, getting a positive ID on these is tricky - although certainly we can exclude a lot of species, because (for example) the eyes don't meet at the top of the head, but that doesn't help you a lot

In fact I'd say almost impossible from this shot alone as we cannot see all of it - and often you need to see the end of the 'tail' (amongst other things) clearly to 'nail' an ID.
This may help: http://www.insectidentification.org/...amselflies.asp (for US)

However, I'm willing to be proved wrong by Jack (as US based like yourself) or Geoff.

If you have you got any shots of this one where the focus missed the eyes and it shows the tail sharper, and/or from different angles, they would help with ID. I find this means I often regret rushing through the camera download folder and deleting all the less good ones, since they may have later served a useful purpose!

Cheers,

[DanK]

Dave,

Good point. I will check through my other images. I read somewhere that there are over 200 species of dragonflies and damselflies in the Adirondacks alone, so identifying them can be hard.

Nick--you mentioned zooming. To my knowledge, no zoom lenses are true macro lenses, even though manufacturers freely label them as such. For bugs, I generally use a 100mm macro lens, either alone or with a 36mm extension tube (which gives you more magnification but requires that you get even closer). I have started experimenting with a 100mm lens, 1.4x converter, and 12 mm tube, but that also requires getting very close. Some people use a 150mm or 180mm macro, which gives you somewhat more working distance, but those lenses are heavier and hence harder to hand hold.

It takes a lot of practice and a high frustration tolerance to get close enough. in the case of damselflies and dragonflies, it helps to be at their level. They seem to be more frightened of things above them. So, I spend time crawling on my stomach. This year, the dragonflies were particularly skittish, and I got very few keepers.

Dan

[Geoff F]

Appears to be one that we don't get in Europe, Dan. I've checked through the 'vagrants' list without any success.

As Dave said, a view of the tail can be important; also the colour and shape of any wing spots.

But also remember that females and immature specimens are usually a different colour

[Nicks Pics]

Interesting information about how you do it. I just find that if you don't zoom in the field of view is too wide to frame the subject well, and if your'e too close, the lense shadows the bug, but then, I'm just using a point and shoot