Four spot chaser

[Jonathan Ashton]

Tripod Canon 1DX Canon 100-400L 11 & 1.4TC Auto ISO 1600, 1/2000 sec f8
All C&C welcome

[Warren Spreng]

Not sure I can offer anything other than: Wow! What amazing wing position! Just the right amount of in focus and out of focus on the wings. Superb!

[Allen Sparks]

Hi Jonathan,

Agree with the Wow! Splendid image and so hard to do. Can you share any tips on technique? Wonderfully sharp in flight capture.

Allen

[Jonathan Ashton]

Allen this dragonfly is a darter, I think your equivalent are what you call skimmers. They tend to be habitual, cruising around their patch and not tolerating other species. This often leads to them having a favourite look out perch to which they will return. I waited till he landed on the perch, then focused on him. I set my camera on a tripod to rear focus as opposed to shutter focus then when I use a cable release the lens does not start hunting to focus, it stays put. After this I watched to see the most common approach route and just made a minor adjustment to the focus, it is just a perception really. Then that's it Bob's your uncle.:w3 Simple as that....the frustrating thing is that the very best poses are always just a fraction out of focus and you are tempted to post them but this year I am trying to be more selective and if the head is not spot on it goes in the bin. It would be nice to get all the dragonfly in focus but often the angle from which the image can be taken will not permit but sometimes selective focus can be pleasing, for me the head must be sharp.

[Steve Maxson]

You really nailed it this time, Jon! Excellent sharpness throughout. I like how this shows that the two sets of wings don't beat in the same direction - it appears that the front wings are just starting the upstroke while the rear wings are starting the downstroke.:cheers:

[Ron Conlon]

Thanks for the description of how you capture them in flight. Also, wow!

[David Cowling]

You really did well with this one Jonathan. I really like the way that you can see each wing seperatly but with enough blur to suggest motion. Excellent job to get the head sharp, I agree with you about the need to have the head sharp on insect images.

[Bill Nuttall]

Splendid Jonathan …….. I have never managed to get a good in flight shot, they are always too fast for me

[BenBotha]

Really impressive. Wish I took the photo! Tfs.
Ben

[Jonathan Ashton]

Thanks for the comments everyone.