COMMON BLUETAIL
(Ischnura senegalensis)
(Ischnura senegalensis)
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Aperture 278/100 ISO 500 Focal Length 24/1 
Dec, 2016Views
1325
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Awards
Winner in The Tiny World Photo Challenge
People's Choice in The Big Little World Of Macro Photo Challenge
Contest Finalist in Green Eyes Photo Contest
Peer Award
Absolute Masterpiece
Top Choice
Magnificent Capture
Superb Composition
Superior Skill
All Star
Outstanding Creativity
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Smilepapers
May 01, 2019
What a wonderful picture. I hope to one day be able to capture something as awe-inspiring as this.
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yvonnechristinebannister
June 26, 2019
Congratulations on your grand win, very well deserved, so sharp, perfect, Yvonne
Same photographer See allBehind The Lens
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Behind The Lens
Location
It is my fortune to live in the foothills of the Drakensberg on the threshold of a 500,000 hectare wilderness area. Our garden on the shores of a lake provides a rich range of habitats and opportunities for wildlife, including more than seventeen species of dragon and damselfly.Time
Mid morning with full cloud cover. Usually as the sun warms the air the invertebrates become active and hard to approach. But the cloud cover cooled the air, making the insects lethargic and easier to approach.Lighting
Macro accentuates everything, including contrast and one of the biggest challenges to consistency is creating a sufficiently diffused light source. I have an old metz Mecablitz (circa around 1975) , which I use for macro illumination through a home made diffusion head constructed from translucent plastic ( an old milk container) and sheets of tracing paper.Equipment
I used a Nikon D3 with a 24mm f2.8 prime lens, reversed via a BR2 ring and mounted on a 20mm extension tube for a magnification of around 6X. Camera is hand held. Light mounted off camera at 85 degrees to lens axis.Inspiration
Natural history is fascinating. It provides for never ending photographic opportunity. The mountain grasslands around my home provide for a diverse ecology rich in macro invertebrate species. Summers are abuzz with myriad tiny creatures going about their business among the flowers and mountain shrubs. I ran into this Common Bluetail damselfly while foraging around for something to focus my macro setup on. The perfect tonal contrast between the subject and background caught my eye. The orange microscopic mites clinging to the adult damsel provide for a further layer of interest and colour contrast, which I didn't even notice until I looked through the lens. The mites are less than .25mm in diameterEditing
Very little post production. Only a tweak of chroma and minimal sharpening here.In my camera bag
a pair of Nikon D3' bodies together with a range of prime and zoom lenses. For macro I carry a Nikkor 55mm f3,5 macro, as well as a Nikkor 24mm f2-8, which I use reversed via a BR2 ring for a 4x magnification. For higher levels of magnification I carry a set of extension tubes; 20mm, 35mm, and 50mm. Used together with the reversed 24mm, they provide for magnification ranges from 6X right up to 12X.Feedback
For finding insects warmer weather is more productive, but with their metabolisms going at full tilt, the invertebrates are at their most active and are hard to photograph. When the weather is cooler, they are more lethargic and easier to approach close up. Immediately after Hail storms, and summer thundershowers when the air has chilled rapidly, will often find insects clinging to shelter where they can easily be approached and photographed.
