Dragonflies and Damselflies

Before I got my first DSLR, I tried to shoot dragonflies with an A95 compact camera. I found out quickly that in-flight photo was more or less impossible but suddenly this Brown Hawker landed on my left arm and sat there while it was eating its lunch. A95 was obviously not built for one-hand manouvering but finally I managed to get one picture.. At that time I was happy with a picture like this :)

IMG_1044_DxO_full.jpg
 
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Jul 29, 2012
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Nice one, Erik.
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AlanF

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It was warm enough yesterday for dragonflies. Here are two shots of a common darter, one taken with the 5DSR + 400mm DO II + 1.4xTC at about 3.3m away, the mfd (bottom), and the same data further along the fence taken with the Sony RX10 IV at about 1m (top). I wish I had taken the 100-400mm II with me rather than the prime.DSC05936-DxO_common_darter_sharptail.jpg3Q7A8026-DxO_common_darter.jpg
 
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I wish I had taken the 100-400mm II with me rather than the prime.
I am just curious about the reason, could it possibly be the 900mm (600mm from front element) minimum focus distance of the 100-400 II? It is quite useful..:p

Here is a Ruddy Darter chewing on an unidentified prey..
Sigma 150/2.8 apo macro with 2x teleconverter, it has unusually long minimum focus distance for being a dedicated macro lens; 390/180mm. Most insects dislikes camera lenses being closer than that anyway.. I just wish the stabilization was in the same class as the 100-400II :)
By the way, it is possible to reduce min focus distance and increase magnification on both EF100-400 and Sigma 150 by adding extension tubes. But then the stabilization will no longer compensate 100% so it does not work well when handheld.. I did some tests on the 100-400 with 1.4x but gave up pretty soon

Thanks for all feedback, Click, Alan, Berowne, Wiebe and Bluediablo!

F36A3724_DxO_r2880 by Erik Astrom, on Flickr
 
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