Stalking Damselflies and Dragonflies - A Photo Essay Tutorial.

Many have commented on my dragonfly and damselfly shots, and how hard it is to get shots of them. I finally made the decision to share how I get these shots (and no, it's not by using a giant zoom or distance telephoto mode.)

There are a few things that you need to get these shots:

• A decent camera. This is a must. You will need a macro mode and a pretty good amount of megapixels so that when you crop in to see the details there's no loss of quality.
• Patience. This is a must as well. These creatures need to trust you, and trust does come with time.
• A location with water. I've found that anything from a pool to a pond or lake works. I usually prefer a location called Bluffview, which is a pond in a mobile home park.
• Lots of film or a large, free media card. Taking photos of these guys requires a lot of room for error. Have at least 20 shots available for them.
  

Now that we've covered the list of what is needed, we'll discuss the differences between dragonflies and damselflies.

While in flight telling one from the other is virtually impossible, however when they are at rest the differences are apparent. While both have four panels of wings, only one of them shows all four of them while sitting.

The dragonfly (and their relatives the skimmers) sit at rest with all four panels showing.


The damselfly only shows two panels when resting.


Both the dragonfly and damselfly seem to act the same when you take their photos, or at least when you attempt to take them.

Naturally, they are spooked by us and will fly away if you get too close, so how do you get a macro (which on my camera requires you to be no more than 6 inches from the subject) without them flying away? Read on. :)

The first thing I do is to get an overview of the areas where the dragonflies and damselfies are landing, how many there are, what colors they are, what sizes, etc. The next thing I notice is the area where they land. Can I step or sit near there without falling into the water? Could I reach over the water without the land giving out and tossing me in? Is there any shade around to rest in while I wait?

Once I decide all of this I choose my spot to sit. Like fishing, dragonfly and damselfly photos take an incredible amount of patience to get. Choose a nice spot where you saw them sitting earlier. You can choose sun or shade, but if possible be mindful if you are in a spot where you cast a shadow upon the dragonflies or damselflies. You want the sunlight for the best possible shots.

Waiting. Waiting is usually not fun, and to an extent this is no exception, but it's worth it, I promise! Wait as quietly and as still as possible. Watch where they sit and where they fly off to. When you see one land near you (they will, I promise) reach in and snap a photo. Try to snap the first photos as far away as your macro will allow. I start my first shots about 5 inches away.

Did they stay? Good. Snap another shot a bit closer in now. How about now? Did they fly away? Yeah, they probably did. That's okay. Sit back down and wait. They will come back near the same place that they flew off from. For this reason I refer to them as boomerangs, because like the boomerang it comes right back to you... give or take.

Okay, now that they came back get ready to take more shots. Keep taking photos and moving in closer until they fly off. Try different camera angles. Be advised they do have good vision, so leave the face shots until last.

My theory is that once they fly off and return so many times and see you've done no harm to them they trust you. It is at this point they are the bravest with me. They allow me to get in close and to shoot different angles of them. The do still fly off, but I watch for them to land and repeat.

Be prepared to have a lot of mistakes. I tend to shoot three of each shot to assure that I didn't move, they didn't move or that the camera didn't focus on the tail instead of the head. On a typical day I can take anywhere from 20 to over 50 shots of them. Some days more than not are unusable. Other days, like this past weekend, all but two are usable.

Now, some might be wondering why you can't just take photos of them with your zoom. The short answer is, of course, that you can take a zoom shot of them. However if you don't have a telephoto macro setting you'll see that the details are lacking. With zoom you can't see the veins in the wings, the hairs on their bodies and more that are visable only in the macro mode.

Dragonfly shot with zoom mode (I may have shaken a bit as I had my arm extended more than a foot over the water to get this shot)


Below you'll see a series of shots from my photo shoot on Saturday at Bluffview. I've included one uncropped for those that are interested in why a large MP camera is a plus in this instance.

The first shots usually won't wow you. Don't worry they are mostly test shots to get them used to you and to learn their movement patterns. Here are some of my first shots.





They aren't the greatest, are they? I was further away from them and you can tell it from the lacking details in the shots.

Let's see what a photo looks like before I crop it, shall we? This shot has been un cropped and unedited (save for the copyright and the auto resize Gather does)


Let's crop that photo down, now.


With the crop we can now see all the details present on the full sized shot (which is over 2,000 pixels in size vs the 500 pixels we get here on Gather.)

Some outtakes. Remember when I mentioned about the camera focusing on the wrong part? Here's a series of photos where the camera did just that.





Let's try that one more time.


Success!

Now get your camera and get out there and shoot some of your own damselfly and dragonfly shots! Good luck to you all and I look forward to seeing your photos!

All photos taken with a Canon Powershot A560 camera no editing done aside from crops and copyrights. The first photo was taken earlier than the rest of the shots which are from August 16, 2008.