If you want a fun photographic challenge, try to photograph a dragonfly in flight. It is definitely a test of your skill and patience to track and photograph a subject this small (about 1.6 inches (41 mm) in this case) while it is flying past you. I captured this image of a male Common Baskettail dragonfly (Epitheca cynosura) last Thursday at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge.
Longtime readers of this blog know that I will try to photograph dragonflies in flight at least several times every season. Some dragonfly species, like this one, will hover a little at times, which gives me a slightly better chance of getting a shot that is in focus. My camera does not focus quickly and accurately enough for me to use autofocus, so I end up focusing manually most of the time.
This shot is unusual in that I managed to freeze all of the motion of the wings—most of the time the wings are blurry. If you click on the image to see it in higher resolution, you will also note the way that the Common Baskettail (and many other species) folds its legs up under its “chest” (technically it is called the “thorax”) while flying to minimize wind resistance.
For those of you who might be curious, I ended up cropping the original image significantly, because I took the photograph with “only” my 180 mm macro lens and the dragonfly was flying over the water—I would have to have been in the water to get any closer.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Mike Powell 
Superb capture Mike! Still waiting to see my first ode of the year over here.
Thanks. Hopefully you will not have to wait very long for them to appear. I have had some unusually good fortune the last few weeks in seeing quite a few species of both dragonflies and damselflies.
Amazing!
Thanks, Laura.
Fabulous info and shot.
Thanks, Tricia. You have to be a little crazy to try these kinds of shots, but fortunately I qualify in that regard. 🙂
I am so glad you do! I love seeing them. Great to have the images for poetry.
Oh Wow!
Skilled indeed!
Thanks, Eliza. Skill helps, but you need some luck and a whole lot of patience and persistence.
You have a lot more patience than I do.
I am always impressed with your in flight shots, Mike. I’ve thought about getting a Canon 400 f/5.6 as it is said to be good for that.
That sounds like it would be a good lens to use for the task. From my personal experience, having a lens of a fixed focal length eliminates the additional complication of trying to track, focus, and zoom at the same time, a tricky juggling act when I am focusing manually.
Well Mike, you pulled off quite a feat with this shot! Fantastic to see his little legs tucked up underneath. Congrats on a great photo! Can’t believe the detail in the wings 😀 Very well done!!!
Thanks, Liz. It took a lot of shots to get one like this–it’s hard, but the results are really worth it when it works. 🙂
Terrific photo, Mike!
Blue Rock Horses Frederick County, Virginia bluerockhorses.com
Thanks, Mitzy.
Funny that you should post about this today, because just yesterday as a dragonfly whizzed past us on our walk, I thought about you and wondered how it could ever be possible to capture a still image of such a tiny, fast-moving creature!
I smiled when I read your comment, Nina. I remember my amazement the first times that I saw photos of a dragonfly in flight. I never imagined at that time that I on occasion be able to duplicate that feat.
Wow, Mike, this is truly spectacular.
Thanks, Jet. I will admit that you have to be a little crazy to even attempt this kind of a shot, because the failure rate is guaranteed to be high. Fortunately I qualify as being a little crazy, in addition to being both patient and persistent. 🙂
Great job, Mike with the in-flight capture, and not easy I know. It is quite interesting to watch their flight patterns, and how the different species work their territory.