Allow me to share with you this image. It's something that I have never witnessed before. I'm sure it happened quite a lot; I just didn't pay attention to it.
I was by the pond trying to see if there would be opportunities for some swallows BIF shots. Unfortunately that day only a couple of them showed up. Meanwhile a couple of damselflies were having their happy union, hovering here and there close to where I stood. Next thing I knew, there was something bigger on top of both of them. Not sure what was happening, I pointed my camera at them to take a look. I wasn't sure if the dragonfly was looking for a meal or what. The female damselfly managed to free herself and flew away. Once she found out they were in big do-do all she did was trying to get away ASAP. So much for till death do us part :D. Anyhow, the dragonfly looked to me was holding on to the male damselfly all the time. Don't know if it was trying to drown that damselfly but the latter was submerged for a short moment. Luckily, it eventually managed to get away from the dragonfly and the dragonfly also appeared to have given up after a seemingly failed attempt. In the end, both flew away and nobody died.
I only had a 300f2.8 with me that day and so, since the minimum focus distance of that lens is 7.2 ft, I could not get anywhere closer. As a result, I had to be a lazy and unskilled photographer once again and shot from afar, cropped in pp to get the image I wanted. I think it's now a bit less than half of the original size, also because I was cropping from a horizontal format.
In hindsight, it would have been better if I had the 200-400 with me (focuses down to 6 ft) or a 300f4 + 1.4TC (focus down to 4.8 ft). Never thought that there could be a time when a 200-400 would be better than a 300f2.8 :)
Messy background, I know.:(
Thank you for looking !!
Last edited by Desmond Chan; 07-21-2010 at 11:48 PM.
Don't mind the BG Desmond the bugs really stand out because of their colours. Interesting that they might view the damselfly as competition, food maybe.
Hi Desmond - way cool bugs - love those blues- sharp as a tack - if the BG wasnt what it is - they probably would not have landed there and you would not have got this shot.
Id Take it :)
Like it!!!
Life and Death
