Fine-lined Emerald Dragonfly in Flight

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Fine-lined Emerald Dragonfly in Flight

September 19, 2017 by Mike Powell

For quite some time I chased after a male Fine-lined Emerald dragonfly (Somatochlora filosa) one morning last week at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge, but it seemingly had endless energy and would not stop to perch. Unwilling to give up, I decided to try to shoot him in mid-air as he patrolled a section of a trail.

As you might suspect, it is pretty challenging to shoot dragonflies in mid-air. If you have a high-end camera with a really good focusing system and a fast, responsive lens, you might be able to use auto focus, assuming you are able to track the dragonfly in your camera’s viewfinder. I was using my somewhat older Canon 50D DSLR, a camera that was made starting in 2008, and my Tamron 150-600mm zoom lens, which is sometimes slow in acquiring focus, so I was focusing manually. In this situation, I was helped a little by the fact that the dragonfly would hover a bit from time to time, although usually he would do so while facing away from me.

Patience and persistence paid off and I was pretty excited when I was able to capture this shot.

Posted in Dragonflies, dragonfly, Nature, Photography, wildlife | Tagged Canon 50D, dragonfly in flight, Fine-lined Emerald, Fine-lined Emerald dragonfly, Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge, Somatochlora filosa, Tamron 150-600mm, Woodbridge VA | 9 Comments

9 Responses

on September 19, 2017 at 8:11 am | Reply Laura (PA Pict)

Wonderful shot. And impressive. Those guys move fast.
- on September 20, 2017 at 5:06 am | Reply Mike Powell
  
  Thanks, Laura. It took a huge amount of luck and patience and only a tiny bit of skill to capture that kind of action shot.
  - on September 20, 2017 at 6:14 am Laura (PA Pict)
    
    I’m sure you’re selling your skills short.
  - on September 20, 2017 at 5:24 pm Mike Powell
    
    🙂
on September 19, 2017 at 8:21 am | Reply muttleyswalk

We can learn a lot from nature and find that all the technology we have like flight, submarines, electric, navigation and the list goes on nature did it first. Only if we could harness the power of the ant or the Emerald Dragonflyt we could do wanderers.
on September 19, 2017 at 4:32 pm | Reply exploringcolour

Now that would have been a challenge! Well done!
- on September 20, 2017 at 5:07 am | Reply Mike Powell
  
  Thanks, Liz.
on August 28, 2019 at 2:17 pm | Reply Sharon and Bill Willis

Hi, Mike! It’s always a treat for my husband Bill and me to talk with you out at the OBNWR where we volunteer. These photos are amazing. Thanks for sharing.
- on August 28, 2019 at 5:04 pm | Reply Mike Powell
  
  Wow, thanks. If you explore the blog, you’ll see lots of photos from OBNWR. As you have noticed, it has become my favorite place to hang out with my camera. 🙂