Aug 292009
The new camera takes some interesting pictures of insects. When using the telephoto lens up close, the range over which it’s in focus is notably less than an inch, so part of a dragonfly 6 feet away is clear, while the rest is blurry. This is less of a problem with the regular lens.
3 Responses to “Bugshots: Dragonflies”
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Last two in the series are a “Darning Needle”, not a true dragonfly; dragonflies can’t fold their wings over their backs.
You should see the monster dragonflies we have up here in North Dakota; total wingspan is around five to six inches. Some are light green and black in coloration, others light blue and black (they are more common).
Their eyes are around the size of small peas.
>so part of a dragonfly 6 feet away is clear, while the rest is blurry.
Try this technique; Set your camera to ‘macro’ mode, the little flower on the mode dial, and use the built-in flash. This uses a fast shutter speed, which helps to eliminate motion blur, and stops the lens down, which increases the depth of field. Also, don’t zoom in all the way, only to about 3x, (since I don’t know which lens you have, I can’t give you a focal length in mm).Don’t worry if the final image is still small, with that big sensor you got, you can crop a long way without losing quality.
I’ve got good results using the above method.
Forgot to add to my above post, set your camera to only use the center focussing point, that way it’ll focus on what you want, not something way on the edge of the frame.