This is the last image in my mini-series on insect eyes from this past Friday—a close-up of a beautiful little damselfly at Huntley Meadows Park, the local marshland where I take many of my nature photographs.
Photographing damselflies is particularly challenging for me, because they are so long and skinny (not to mention the fact that they are really small in size). About the only way to get their bodies completely in focus is to be absolutely perpendicular to them. When I took this image, I couldn’t get into the optimal position, thanks to a sharp, thorny bush, so the lower half of the body was out of focus. That is one of the reasons why I chose to crop this image as I did, though the main reason was to focus viewers’ attention on the eyes.
This image shows the wide separation of the damselfly’s eyes, which is one of the ways to tell them apart from dragonflies, the other members of the Odonata family. Dragonflies have eyes that are very close together or even touching each other.
If you missed the earlier postings on insect eyes, check out the images of a fly’s eyes and a dragonfly’s eyes. In all three cases, click on the images, if you want to get a higher resolution view of the insects’ beautiful eyes.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved
Mike Powell 
It would be fantastic to be able to see with those eyes, just once.
The damsels are so wonderfully delicate compared with the dragons. They are almost ethereal and fae. It’s great that you could get so close!
Is “Patience” you middle name?
Now that you own a macro lens, you may want to experiment with “focus stacking.”
I may have to talk with you more about that technique. I’ve read about it, but am not sure how to do it handheld with the kind of shots that I like to take.
I’m jealous of your macro lens and abundance of patience. Excellent shot.
Thanks, Jeremy. I am pretty sure that you have at least as much patience as I so when I see the butterfly and bird shots that you capture. Macro lenses are a whole lot of fun, though they force you to adjust your field of vision to a very small area and pay really close attention to what’s there.
Now these guys have some monster-sized eyes. I haven’t played much with macro lenses yet–I’m waiting for insects to show up sometime before September.😀 I would be interested in trying the focus stacking technique, too. Let us know how that works for you.