A few weeks ago I was becoming increasingly frustrated by my lack of photography and so decided to pop down to a local nature reserve. This was despite the fact that it was as dark as it is possible to be in daylight hours, it was very breezy and it was spitting with rain. More worryingly, it looked like the heavens might open at any moment. As luck would have it I found a nice Four Spotted Chaser perched in the cool conditions on some waterside foliage. It soon became clear that it wasn't going to fly off and so I had the challenge of trying to photograph it on its swaying perch with very little light to play with.
It was a frustrating experience. Not only was the perch swaying in the breeze but so was the dragonfly itself. I would just manoeuvre my tripod into position, line up my lens parallel to its body or wings and it would move, meaning I had to start again. Anyway, I persevered and with a combination of a Plamp, a reflector, an awful amount of patience, ISOs of 400 and 800 and quite a few out of focus images, I thought I'd done as well as I could possibly do in the conditions and headed off home.
Once I reviewed my images at home I realised that, despite the conditions, the light actually looked quite nice in some images. Looking at the images below, and the first one in particular, you would have no idea of the lack of light or of the annoying breeze! And they say the camera never lies!
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I don't think I have ever had a macro photography session in such unsuitable conditions and so the moral of the story is that macro photography is possible in all (well, most) weathers. Sadly, I think I might have to get used to photographing in such conditions.
A nice set of images,the first is particularly good. You'd never had guessed the trouble you had taking them.
ReplyDeletethanks Jamie
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