# Dragonfly in bright sun



## Streets (Jul 24, 2016)

Taken with 18-135 SAM


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## tirediron (Jul 24, 2016)

Nicely captured.  It might be worth backing off the highlights a bit.


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## Streets (Jul 24, 2016)

I did try to do what you said, but the prismatic effect was lost in the attempt.  My post-processing software is very basic.  Thanks for the reply.


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## Emanuel M (Jul 25, 2016)

You have to soften the light - it's too harsh.
I know a Macro photographer that uses a White umbrela to diffuse the light.
I usually try to shade the bugs with my own body.

Can you see the difference?





Cheers


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## Streets (Jul 25, 2016)

Emanuel M said:


> You have to soften the light - it's too harsh.
> I know a Macro photographer that uses a White umbrela to diffuse the light.
> I usually try to shade the bugs with my own body.
> 
> ...


Yes, I see the difference.  Different Dragonfly species, different light, different angle.  Notice that the prismatic effect of the wing structure is missing.  I really like my photo.  Sorry that you don't.


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## Emanuel M (Jul 25, 2016)

You liking your photo is all that matter 
I was just giving you a very simple tip.
If you want to try next time...

Cheers


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## Overread (Jul 25, 2016)

The differences run deeper than that. The OP's photo is of a dragonfly; whilst the latter shown photo by Emanuel is of a damselfly. You can tell easily from the wings; a Dragonfly cannot curve its wings into its body when at rest; instead they remain outstretched in the flight position; meanwhile a damselfly can move its wings in to rest near to its body. There are also differences in structure and head shape; but the wings is the most typical and clearest to see. 


In the OP#s photo it is clearly suffering from the harsh and strong sunlight. This harms the photo and whilst the directional light has shown up the prismatic effect of the wings; its also blasted the highlights out into nothing but pure white and given very harsh very dark shadows. This really takes away a lot of the beauty of the scene if seen with the naked eye and its a limit of the dynamic range of cameras. 

I would urge to take advance of things like the use of a diffuser to block out some sunlight; although honestly during the warmer brighter parts of the day using a block on the sun for a subject like a dragon who can be very responcive to such shadowing at that period; is hard. 

Thus another option (besides waiting for evening or heading out very early) is to use a flash. Even on mounted on the camera can be used and diffused to provide fillflash; letting you expose for the highlights and have the flash boost the local lighting to fill in the shadows of the subject. I harsher lighting conditions this is an often used method (esp with portraits of people but its used in anything really). Fill flash (with something like a lumiquest softbox on the speedlite flash) would be my suggestion for working in harsh strong sunlight.


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## davholla (Jul 27, 2016)

Overread said:


> I would urge to take advance of things like the use of a diffuser to block out some sunlight; although honestly during the warmer brighter parts of the day using a block on the sun for a subject like a dragon who can be very responcive to such shadowing at that period; is hard.
> 
> .


I am not surprised that it is hard to use a diffuser with a dragonfly.  I don't like the sun much so I always take photos in shade so it is not a big problem for me.  Here is one I took from Colombia



IMG_8432dragonfly by davholla2002, on Flickr


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