Firstly thanks to all who have looked at this thread and passed comments, much appreciated.
I will now attempt to answer some of the questions arising. I am a naturalist first and a photographer second, so some knowledge of my subject has been applied to these captures. It is no co-incidence that both of the above dragonflies are females of the species. When the male emerges from the larva stage it spends a few days maturing and then takes up a breeding territory which it defends against other males and also uses to capture and mate with females that enter it’s territory. As such it rarely perches, and then only for a few seconds at best. The females mature away from males territories and then when ready to mate they will enter a males territory. Having mated and laid eggs they will then spend the next three or four days quietly away from the males before their next mating. Both of these were probably in one of those quiet periods. They were found perched as seen and did not fly or move away despite my close approach. Both had almost certainly mated at least once judged by wing wear and other factors. Both were photographed in dull conditions with slight drizzle at times which also might have made them less active, although nearby male Golden-ringed Dragonflies were constantly on the wing despite the poor conditions.
So they were not grab shots, the camera was tripod mounted and some considerable time was taken to get into the optimum position for the shots. The lens used was a Sigma 105mm f/2.8 macro in a 4/3 mount with a 4/3 to m4/3 adapter, focusing was manual, the camera used was a Panasonic G1.
Exif data is as follows:- Golden-ringed, iso 400, 1/160 second, f8, 1/3 under exposure, multi segment metering.
Common Darter, iso 400, 1/50 second, f11, 1/3 under exposure, multi segment metering.
Since I now have a large collection of close up photographs of a variety of species originally using P & S cameras such as a Nikon Coolpix 4500, followed by an Olympus E10 and then an Olympus E1 I am now setting myself the task of obtaining better (in whatever form you define better) shots such as those above, thus there will be many more tripod shots taken than in the past and if I lose shots because of that approach so be it, there’s always another day tomorrow, although I might still attempt hand held shots first for species that I have not previously photographed.
I hope the above has given you all some insight into the methods employed to obtain these shots, and once again many thanks for your interest.
Barrie
