Mike Powell

I love to use my macro lenses. There is something almost magical about capturing details on tiny subjects, like this Fragile Forktail damselfly (Ischnura posita) that I spotted this past Monday alongside a pond in Prince William County, Virginia. Fragile Forktails are only about an inch (25 mm) in length, so I had to get pretty close to my subject to “fill the frame,” even with my 180mm macro lens.

One of the biggest challenges when I get this close to a subject is that my depth of field is really shallow, so I risk having a lot of my subject out of focus. In fact, in the majority of my photos of this damselfly, either the eyes or the tip of the abdomen is in focus, but not both. In this kind of situation, the “trick” to having the entire subject in focus is to position myself so that the sensor of my camera is parallel with the plane of the subject.

In this image, you can see that about the only things in focus are the damselfly and the edge of the leaf on which it was perched—the rest of the image is pleasingly blurred. This approach works pretty well with damselflies, which hold their wings above their bodies when perched, but does not work as well with dragonflies, which perch with outstretched wings. As a result, portions of the dragonflies in most of my photos are blurred, though I usually give top priority to keeping their eyes in focus.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.