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I'm not familiar with species of Dragonfly but I think..from a Dragonfly ID website... that this is a female Ruddy Darter. If someone knows differently please shout up. Nor do I do much macro photography. I do have the Canon 100mm f2.8 Macro lens, though.Any advice on settings (above each photo) etc also welcomed as I'll, hopefully, do more in the summer even if it's in the back garden re lockdown.
On Friday evening I put the cover over our patio table as poor weather was forecast and on Saturday morning I saw the dragonfly attached to one side. Basically hidden which is probably why it survived predation. We have a large pond and dragonflies/damsels etc visit over the summer so I suspect that's why it was on our patio. What intrigued me was the 'thing' next to it. Having done some Googling I now know that this dragonfly had just morphed from larvae and the 'shell' next to it was infact the exuvia. I don't have a flash unit on my 5D11 and it was poor light, overcast ,so I improvised using a pencil torch but held it at a distance to avoid harsh light.I was able to do this by using the 2 second shutter delay. Quite different to no added light. I've since read that conditions for this are warm weather and near water (our pond) and we've had very warm weather (hot even) lately. It remained on the cover from overnight Friday to mid-morning today (Monday) when I noticed it had gone. I read it normally stays put for about three hours to 'harden' up so almost three days seem a lot. Also gone was the exuvia. Infact at one point yesterday I saw that it fallen off the cover onto the patio. I went to get a piece of white paper intending to place it on that on the table top to make it easy to photograph but when I returned from inside it had gone. Nowhere to be found. A bit strange,I thought. I'd be interested to know what the white string-like thread is if anyone knows.
f10 1/5 sec. ISO 200 tripod. Pencil torch light.
Exuvia
1/10 sec 400ISO with torch.
f16 1/10 sec 800 ISO torch light. It showed up the silver on the wings. Last position seen (with wings outspread) before it flew off sometime this morning.
On Friday evening I put the cover over our patio table as poor weather was forecast and on Saturday morning I saw the dragonfly attached to one side. Basically hidden which is probably why it survived predation. We have a large pond and dragonflies/damsels etc visit over the summer so I suspect that's why it was on our patio. What intrigued me was the 'thing' next to it. Having done some Googling I now know that this dragonfly had just morphed from larvae and the 'shell' next to it was infact the exuvia. I don't have a flash unit on my 5D11 and it was poor light, overcast ,so I improvised using a pencil torch but held it at a distance to avoid harsh light.I was able to do this by using the 2 second shutter delay. Quite different to no added light. I've since read that conditions for this are warm weather and near water (our pond) and we've had very warm weather (hot even) lately. It remained on the cover from overnight Friday to mid-morning today (Monday) when I noticed it had gone. I read it normally stays put for about three hours to 'harden' up so almost three days seem a lot. Also gone was the exuvia. Infact at one point yesterday I saw that it fallen off the cover onto the patio. I went to get a piece of white paper intending to place it on that on the table top to make it easy to photograph but when I returned from inside it had gone. Nowhere to be found. A bit strange,I thought. I'd be interested to know what the white string-like thread is if anyone knows.
f10 1/5 sec. ISO 200 tripod. Pencil torch light.
Exuvia
1/10 sec 400ISO with torch.
f16 1/10 sec 800 ISO torch light. It showed up the silver on the wings. Last position seen (with wings outspread) before it flew off sometime this morning.
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