It is not so long ago that I wrote about an almost visit of a dragonfly in my apartment on 73rd street a few years ago. Michael from ultramicroscopic replied with his dragonfly story from the office. Maybe it was not really a reply, but at least it was an awareness heightening inspiration. Suddenly there were dragonflies everywhere. I saw dragonflies in the streets, dragonflies in my dreams and then, of course, real dragonflies by a lake in Pennsylvania. I was not prepared to encounter them. I did not expect to see so many in one place, and also not such large specimen, flying around me, hunting, resting, even mating. I recognized at least four different species. It was impossible to take pictures of some, it was a bit easier with others. Their activity level really varied from species to species. I really wanted to take pictures of them. I really tried. Dragonflies are not very patient around cameras, so I have plenty of pictures with a large insect flying in or out of the frame. I had no micro lens with me, the tele-lens was just not the right tool for this task, so I ended up using my favorite Zeiss 75/1.5 Biotar. The lens is quite magical, it is very fast for a 50 year old lens and allows for a very shallow depth of field. Really shallow, basically just millimeters of sharpness.
I know by now that my camera body needs to be calibrated. Images appear superbly sharp on my ground glass, and the results are sly of by a frustrating few inchesf. I will need to find a way to correct this, because right how it is almost impossible to take really decent pictures. What should I do if images on the ground glass appear superbly sharp, yet the image on film is off by a few inches towards the camera. This must mean that the image as I see it, appears just a fraction of a millimeter in front of the film plane? Hmm... seems like my camera is short sighted?
This post is getting much too technical.
I somehow managed to get close to a few dragonflies at rest. I tried to take pictures of the largest species (large with black areas on wings), but all of the images are very out of focus (see first image). Two smaller species seemed a bit more relaxed. I could actually adjust the focus, somehow compensate for the camera flaw and shoot. The pictures here are not taken with a macro lens. This means that I was truly just inches from the insects in the pictures. Dragonflies are such beautiful animals.