In early summer my local botanic garden swarms with dragonflies all focussing on one thing..... and it isn't eating. It is easy enough to get a close up of a posing dragonfly, just move slowly and don't let your shadow go across them, but in my most masochistic moments I enjoy the challenge of trying to capture them in flight. There is almost no hope of freezing the wings and that's fine, a little bit of blur gives that sense of movement but I want the head/eye in focus and as much of the body as possible. Depending on the light that usually ends up with an f stop around 5.6/6.3 and a speed of somewhere between 1/1000 and 1/1600. And then I stand there for an hour or so hoping to catch one of the little monsters pausing for a fraction of a second in one place. Usually, of course, the autofocus grabs the background or by the time I have the camera pointing at the right spot the dragonfly is long gone, but every now and then I get one. But to be honest, more often than not I get nothing. So my question is are there any other masochists out there who try to take these sorts of shots and if you are successful, any technique tips would be most gratefully accepted. I have included 4 pics of the little critters in flight and a couple at rest, just because I love their details. All thoughts and comments welcome.
Conkerwood