Dragonfly

I know, another dragonfly blip and this one isn't even colorful and a bit tattered around the wing tips. But when a blip flies into your house, you just gotta run with it. I had been working in the man cave and came up for a coffee break, when I saw this little gem flapping in my window.

Unfortunately, it was the window above the door and like yesterdays roach blip, was going to be a stool and stretch job. On the positive side, I already knew the best camera settings for the job. Because of the strong back lighting, natural lighting was out of the question, so it was straight in with the flash.

With the insect on the window frame, the shot was not good, with the color of the wood blending with the insect, but with the insect on my finger, focusing was impossible. I wanted to use manual focus, so it was just a question of moving the camera back and forth to get the wings in focus.

I took about twenty shots from different angles. The problem with such a large insect is depth of field. If the subject had been brightly colored, then head, thorax and a touch of wing structure would have been fine, but this subjects best feature was its wing structure. I eventually managed to manipulate my non-co-operative model, so that the wings were parallel to the lens and captured the structure. Another plus was that the insect hid my rather grubby finger nail. I lost the tail end of the abdomen, but had what I wanted and did not want to get greedy at the expense of the insect, which I then coaxed to freedom.

One of these pre-historic insects entering the house is not uncommon. Towards dusk, the sky is filled with hundreds of them right outside my house. I've seen large orb spiders feeding on them when they stray too close to the deadly yellow web. My planned blip will have to wait for another day.

Being from an aeronautical background, I have always been fascinated by these creatures with their two pairs of wings. I was hoping to freeze one in flight with the flash, but that just was not working out, It needed to be a side view and all she would give me was her back.

Best viewed zoomed in.

Dave