Emerald Flash

by Jeff Bevan · Published 18th July 2016 · Updated 28th August 2016

For many years dragonflies were my primary photographic subjects. I photographed little else apart from snow and starlings in the winter.

Today I returned to Waldegrave Pond, a wildlife jewel high up in the Mendip Hills of Somerset. Its a former Somerset Wildlife Trust reserve. But its future is somewhat uncertain. It has suffered at the hands of anglers who often lack bio-hazards knowledge and spread invasive plants from pond to pond on their gear.

Today a couple of anglers were at the pond so I headed to the far side and looked out of dragonflies. Sadly, I do not find much apart from emerald damselflies (Lestes spoons).

Emerald damselfly (Lestes spoons) at Waldegrave Pond on the Mendip Hills

I had a play with a small flash. I had taped a white diffuser to the front of the flash to soften the light and removed the lens hood from my Sigma 150mm macro lens. Leaving the hood on would have put the lower half of each image in the dark!

Without Flash

This image, and the cropped section below, were taken without flash. The sun backlit the Iris leaves and highlighted the insects hairs, but its body is pretty dark.

All pictures were taken at f8 using a shutter speed of 1/160th of a second. This shutter speed allowed me to handhold the shots with the help of a monopod.

Emerald damselfly (Lestes spoons) at Waldegrave Pond on the Mendip Hills

With flash

With flash the details of the body are much clearer. However, the light is harsh and reflective, particularly on the eyes. The stems just behind the damselflies are much brighter and so more distracting.

The proximity of leaves behind the insect, and strong sun backlighting, avoided the black background common on images taken with flash. The shadows on the leaf are caused by the sun shining on to the legs on the far side of the leaf – not by the flash. Had I not used a diffuser this may have very different.