Thank you very much Nigel for this generous comment.....;-)

Best regards,

The light is not bad but I wonder if it was not deflecting - it has a very strange blur to it. I'd say it would be too early at 5.6. Another thing is the wings tips are quite out of focus. That is always difficult to see through the narrow viewfinder. I have been trying to capture all-in-focus perfect dragonfly for some time now (only the background blurred) but I have not had much luck with it yet either.
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Thanks for your comment.

As you know 100% DOF with this combination of lenses is not easy to get.
Wing size from left to right tip is about 14 cm , body size at it's biggest part about 3 cm where ever you would focus there is always some part of the body/wings that will be OOF.
To become OOF background it's necessary to shoot with low aperture ( f 5.6 max), to get more DOF on the body/wings we would like to decrease the aperture( f 16 ) but that will do no good to the background again.



If you look at this shot again, the mean reason of shooting it sideways was to get the body from head to tale tip over the total length in focus....I think I did good here .
When you look at my next post you will see that this shot is taken from above the insect , the DOF increases quite a bit.......





Anyway it's fun to photograph these insects, wish I could see some with different colours but they haven?t showed up yet..

Best regards,

Fons,

But how does it work with birds then - where bird is not small and yet the background is plain blurry? And flowers? I suspect it has more to do with distance to the subject as well as focal length rather than the aperture only. Also, choosing the background that is far from the insect (not that you should throw away every other opportunity that comes) could be of help. I have not done any nature shooting since the last dragonfly post (and you can see the butterflies are far from perfect), but perhaps I will experiment more with it when I get a chance. My comment was just a thought, a wish that could help us to become better.

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Hi Sergey,

I always appreciate your vision and comments and like to read them .
As you said ?a wish that could help us to become better.? that?s for me also the main point when making a comment.

You are right in saying ? I suspect it has more to do with distance to the subject as well as focal
length rather than the aperture only.?
Focal length as also the lens that is used is very important in creating DOF?
How ever it?s hard to become a 100% DOF , I also will try out some thinks next time I?m out in the field again?;-)
Maybe shooting at different aperture settings and combining these images in PS using layers.
This to get a perfect shot we have to setup our gear , tripod is of course necessary?
We need a Dragonfly that is willing to sit long an off in the same spot so we can make 4 to 5 images with different settings.
I think it?s worth trying.
Anyway thanks again for this review and I hope to see a few tryouts from your hand pretty soon..;-)

Best regards,

What I was thinking off is already done here , have a look at the link..

Regards,

This picture results after merging 2 images in PS (layers) to increase the DOF. I used a inverted lens 50 mm 1.4. In the first one I made focus in the head, in the second I focused the abdomen
Photographer:
X
Ricardo Rico

Fons van Swaal. wrote:
> This picture results after merging 2 images in PS (layers) to increase the DOF. I used a inverted
> lens 50 mm 1.4. In the first one I made focus in the head, in the second I focused the abdomen
> Photographer:
> X
> Ricardo Rico
>

I believe 5d (and perhaps d200) will allow you to focus on multiple points, thus selecting the optimal DOF for you. Multiple shots on dragonfly with different focusing points would rather be a kludgy method. In my opinion, of course.
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Maybe it would be better not adjusting the focus point while shooting but only the aperture ...
1 shot 5.6 2e shot 8.0 3e shot 16 , if there was a change ofcourse to make three shots in a row on the same subject....!

Fons

Fons van Swaal. wrote:
> Maybe it would be better not adjusting the focus point while shooting but only the aperture ...
> 1 shot 5.6 2e shot 8.0 3e shot 16 , if there was a change ofcourse to make three shots in
> a row on the same subject....!
>
> Fons
>

But then you still end up with photoshoping and masking - might as well just blur the background. I do not think it is necessary to do multiple shots. We should be able to do it all in one.
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