Capturing Dragons by Andy Astbury

Do you want to capture a dragon?

Do you want quality saleable images of some of nature's most spectacular and wonderful creations, the macro-miracles of evolution that have been around, in one form or another, since the time of the dinosaurs?

If so read on!

Dragonflies have a staggering amount of fine detail, from the massive, exquisitely coloured, compound eyes (which are the obvious, main point of camera focus) and which, within themselves, contain thousands of individual lenses, to the amazing mouth structure and the long facial 'hairs' each of which sit in their own 'pit'.

Alternatively if you adopt a 'top-down' view you will bring into focus the phenomenal structure of the neck joint along with the wing roots, the upper thorax detail and, if in your plane of focus, the wings with their complex ribs and spars.

The detailed complexity of nature's engineering abounds everywhere, all of which, as a wildlife photographer, you can capture and subsequently present to a spellbound audience. This is what this article will teach you – how to capture a dragon!

But it’s not quite as simple as you might think – I do wish it was!

Yes, we can run down to our nearest retailer to buy the best macro lens on the planet and while we are there we can also spend a not inconsiderable amount on the highest resolution camera body upon which to mount this awesomely sharp lump of glass.

But so many times I get emails and phone calls from disappointed photographers, of all levels of ability, and all with the same set of problems.

The two main problems that arise more often than not stem from the same criterion – depth of field, or as I shall refer to it from now on, DoF.

When it comes to macro photography some people don’t consider DoF until it’s too late – they’ve found a subject as rare as hen's teeth, photographed it and then felt thoroughly gutted at their failure to be impressed by their own images.

Others meanwhile pursue maximum DoF in a very direct and factual manner, and they do indeed succeed in achieving the level of subject sharpness they thought they wanted only to be disappointed still. When they took the image the subject was sitting perched in splendid isolation, and yet in the final image the subject is either lost against a tangled background of vegetation, or something equally distracting.

If a subject looks good in the viewfinder that’s no guarantee of a good final image – and that’s why God gave us DoF preview buttons on our cameras! I never cease to be amazed at just how many people think they know their cameras inside out, and yet they don’t use this valuable facility, or worse still, don’t even know they have the facility in the first place!

Anyway, this brings me quite nicely around to talking kit – not that I’m a ‘gear-head’ by any means, but if you want to produce stunning images then you need to start with equipment that at least stands a chance of putting you in the ball park.

The singularly most important item of kit for producing sharp images is, believe it or not, a sharp lens. The major lens manufacturers all produce sharp lenses, and most of them produce not-so-sharp alternatives at a lower price. These lenses just will not do and I do so wish the manufacturers would stop making them, and that ‘amateur’ photographers would stop buying them; they are a false economy and bring their purchasers nothing but misery and, in the end, regret for buying them, coupled with a burning envy of anyone who went the extra mile, spent the extra money and came away with a sound investment that will deliver years of top-quality service.

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