Saw this dragonfly recently hovering at a local lake. I could only get his head sharp at this angle - just wouldn’t turn parallel to me.
Any
Canon R7, Sigma 150-600 Contemporary
ISO 400, f7.1, 1/3200s, hand held
I had my settings for egrets in flight when this guy happened along. Would have probably reduced shutter speed and narrowed aperture if I had more time.
Gorgeous colors against the blue water! The shallow DOF is inevitable with these guys.
I’m curious if you were in electronic shutter, as the blur at the end of the front right wing may be a trace of rolling shutter. I sometimes see “bent wings” for the same reason.
Hi Diane, thanks for the comment. Yes, I was in electronic shutter and was wondering the same thing about that wing.
Allen, you’ve got excellent colors and sharpness in the head and thorax all set off well by the background water. This is fine as presented.
Allen, a wonderful in flight shot of this dragonfly. It is sharp where it needs to be. I would be thrilled to capture a shot like this. I haven’t even tried it yet with the R5. Did you have it set to look for the eye for focus? Wondering if it works on little guys like this. Very well done.
Hi Shirley, yes, I had the R7 on animal eye tracking. It found the face of the dragonfly consistently and a few shots were sharp, others not. This was the best wing position of the sharp shots.
Thank you for the comment - I hope you are doing well and having fun with your R5.
Allen, thank you for letting me know that you used animal eye tracking. I figured it worked on these little guys but didn’t know. I see them out in the yard once in a while, but they seem to be moving way too fast to even have a chance to photograph them. I know that they do hover once in a while and that would be the opportunity to snap a shot or too. I haven’t used the R5 all that much yet. I had less than an hour on some wading birds at a NWR the end of August, but they weren’t doing anything exciting. I think I will really enjoy it. Hoping to get back up to Virginia next month and have a little more time to use it and with my friend Donna as well. Always more fun taking photos with a friend.
I’ll add that eye tracking can be awesome but with one caveat – if the subject is small in the fame and the BG busy, it can easily jump to the BG. I use BBF with the * button (on eye-AF) and have the AF-ON button set to single point AF, which can usually let me re-acquire lost focus and then go back to eye-AF.
Hope you get some great chances on your upcoming trip!!
