The Magic Of Flight: Photographing Dragonflies & Puffins

-Partner Content – 

© Will Cheung 

Photographing Dragonflies 

Last month, I bought a used OM System OM-1 from MPB in excellent condition. It is a very fine camera, rich in the latest imaging tech. It’s also really compact, can shoot fast, has amazing autofocusing skills and has some useful trick features, one of which has a particular appeal to me: in-camera focus stacking.

At the time, the lens I wanted, the Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 60mm f/2.8 Macro, was not in stock with MPB – and that’s the way with the used market – so I decided to bite the bullet and bought a new one and that cost £449. Typically, I was on MPB’s website the other day and it had two used lenses in stock at £334. If I had shown some patience I could have saved £115, but I didn’t and it cost me. On the flip side, I could get on with my photography and try my hand at focus stacking with the OM-1, one of the key reasons why I bought the camera.

Well, it’s been interesting, which is another way of saying it hasn’t been an unqualified success, but I have learnt a lot and feel more prepared for my forthcoming photo holiday to Austria shooting macro, so the extra time and practice with the new lens has been worthwhile. I’ll be reporting on my trip with my new camera next month.

Meanwhile, let’s look at another of the OM-1’s features that really appeal to me and that is Pro Capture, a feature that has been a regular on high-end Olympus cameras since the OM-D E-M1 Mark II. Being able to capture full Raws at high speed of an event that happened a second before pushing the shutter button is awesome.

A great example of this was when I was out shooting dragonflies recently. Several four-spotted chasers were landing and taking off from stalks in the water, and I thought a sequence of them taking off would be cool. For this, I borrowed my partner’s 40-150mm f/2.8 with a 1.4x teleconverter to get them a decent size in the viewfinder but I didn’t crop too tightly in camera and allowed space for the subject to fly into.

I could have used the camera’s standard fast continuous speeds to get shots of the insects lifting off, but they are so quick (or my reactions so slow!) that it would have been a waste of effort.

Enter Pro Capture mode. I started with the standard Pro Capture at 20fps with 30 frames pre-capture and 30 post-capture frames. I considered using Pro Capture SH1 but decided against shooting at 60fps purely because of memory usage.

OM System OM-1 Other sample images

Now I could frame up, keep my finger partially depressed on the shutter button and let the camera retain shots in its memory. Looking through the EVF, I pressed the shutter button fully down as soon as the insect vanished from the finder to record the sequence from the last second or so to the SD card.

In principle, the process is easy, but it was physically demanding. The OM-1/40-150mm/1.4x teleconverter combination was not too heavy, but it wasn’t so easy to handhold it for several minutes at a time while keeping the AF point on the dragonfly. I had to lower and rest my arms on a couple of occasions, but to be fair to the dragonflies, they weren’t resting for too long. I took quite a number of sequences of them taking off and landing and later relented and did a few sequences in Pro Capture SH1 at 60fps and 120fps.

The next time I try this technique, I’ll make sure I have a monopod with me to save arm strain. Also, when the insects were active, I was shooting a lot and, inevitably with the SD cards in the OM-1, there was buffering and at times I didn’t have Pro Capture’s full frame capacity available. I had a 170MB/s SD card loaded and didn’t have my 300MB/s card with me, so note to self: take the fast card.

Looking at the thousands of shots later on the computer I was pleased to get some successful shots, nicely framed and in focus. Most rejects were due to the lack of sharp focus. The camera’s AF is really quick but not quick enough to track a dragonfly when it lifted off from a stalk. If the insect took off and stayed in the same plane of focus, it was fine but if it took off at an angle, which it often did, then it was out of focus.

Having now shot with the 40-150mm f/2.8 and 1.4x teleconverter combo, they are on my MBP shooting list. The zoom and converter in excellent condition are £839 and £199 respectively on MBP’s website but that’s good value for an optics combination that takes you from 80mm to 420mm equivalent in 35mm equivalent.  

In the field: Canon EOS 5D Mark IV for wildlife

© Brock & Betty Jeffrey – Canon EOS 5D Mark IV | Sigma 100-400mm f/5-6.3 DG OS HSM Contemporary | 400mm | f/10 | 1/2000 | ISO 1600

In recent years, it has been mirrorless cameras grabbing all the headlines and while their rapid rise has been good for photography, we shouldn’t forget the DSLR. There are millions of them out there, delivering great pictures every single day and after decades of development under their belt, they are hugely capable. Furthermore, whether bought new or used, they offer tremendous value for money.

One of the very finest and most capable DSLRs of recent times is the Canon EOS 5D Mark IV. At MPB, an EOS 5D Mark IV body in excellent condition is available for £1299 which is less than half the price of a new version. This solidly built, 30-megapixel DSLR has 61 AF points, 7fps shooting and the ability to shoot 4K video and is supported by a vast lens range, from Canon and third-party lens makers.

© Brock & Betty Jeffrey – Canon EOS 5D Mark IV | Sigma 100-400mm f/5-6.3 DG OS HSM Contemporary | 400mm | f/10 | 1/2000 | ISO 1600

Photography couple Brock and Betty Jeffrey recently took an EOS 5D Mark IV-based system to Skomer Island to photograph its most famous inhabitants, puffins. For their adventure, the couple took the EOS 5D Mark IV along with the Sigma 100-400mm f/5-6.3 and three Canon lenses, the EF 16-35mm f/2.8 L USM, the EF 24-105mm f/4 L USM and the EF 50mm f/1.8 STM.

To see how Brock and Betty got on with their EOS 5D Mark IV and the Skomer puffins click here and to enjoy the couple’s photo travels and wildlife photography blog click here.