Dragonflies in flight

A few from the summer of dragonflies in flight

First the rare southern migrant hawker which was present in good numbers this year at Wat Tyler CP. I spent most lunchbreaks in Late July/August trying to get these!

Southern migrant hawker-7 by Neil Phillips, on Flickr


Southern migrant hawker by Neil Phillips, on Flickr


Southern migrant or blue eyed hawker Aeshna affinis-8 by Neil Phillips, on Flickr


Southern migrant hawker-8 by Neil Phillips, on Flickr


Southern migrant hawker Aeshna affinis by Neil Phillips, on Flickr

And a Norfolk hawker took loads of shots of these over a few hours with none coming out (I thought) then reviewing the photos later I found this one

Norfolk hawker in flight by Neil Phillips, on Flickr

WOW! Well done sir! This is impressive stuff - can you share how you managed to capture these; is it simply a matter of taking hundreds of shots and some will end up sharp, or have you learned how to track them, or bait them?

Sitting here wanting to say something that appropriately compliments the photographic competence, , the technique and the wonderful result acheived in taking these photos having myself failed to even get a single shot that would stand alongside these, over many summers trying.

Marvellous, so well done; a subject for the HD150 -450 next summer ?

Regards

Great shots Neil, which lenny did you use for these? And were they manual focus?

Very well shot Neil, these are a real treat.

Regards
David

I can only echo the above praise

+1

Catch in focus?

Very impressive set indeed. 👍

Excellent. In the absence of EXIF some info on settings and gear would be nice to learn from please.

Great captures extremely well done. I enjoy watching these beautiful insects especially those that hawk a lot. I came across a large number of migrant hawkers this summer feeding on flying ant's that were just taking to the air, I would estimate at least 40 dragonflies flying so close to each other. It was amazing but I couldn't get any stills only video!

Has I know Neil very well I would say he used a k3 and a DA* 300
Neil

Whatever he used, the results are mighty impressive

Wonderful set , sharp, colorful, just the right amount of motion blur in the wings and non intrusive backgrounds , well done Neil.

Hi All, thanks for the very kind comments.

I used the K-3 and DA*300mm for all these. The southern migrant hawkers were all taken with manual focus as the reeds behind kept confusing the AF (incidentaly it did for those using Nikon D4s etc next to me too) and I waited until it hovered or was moving slowly, often with a breeze. I was typical shooting at f5.6 or f6.3 at ISO400 and getting shutter speeds of 1/1000th or higher.

The Norfolk hawker was with AF when it hovered and is a fairly heavy crop, about 1/4 of the frame. If you click through to the flickr page the EXIF is there

While trying to photograph the southern migrant hawkers one day a nest decided to emerge and the 2 SM Hawkers went mad and we all just had to watch as no1 was going to get a photo of them at hunting speed!