'Basic' Seems to Be Delivering!

I spent another hour or so photographing an Azure Damselfly nymph in the tank in the kitchen during the week. I had talked about the 'Meet your Neighbours Project' in my last post and was pleased with the results but knew if I played around with settings and light that there was always room for improvement. The Emperor nymph was quite a dark subject but I hope as it slowly matures that it will lighten up a bit and produce a good subject to photograph to catch the finer detail. My choice of damselfly was deliberate, a green individual which I thought might stand out well with the white background. After getting my bits of A4 paper stuck to the base, sides and top and adding some LED lights at the back and my Samsung Galaxy S5 phone LED shining down from the top I was ready to photograph. My very basic set up is below, you can just about make out the nymph about a quarter of the way up the stick.

My Basic Tank Set Up

With the steady tripod and speedlite to add more light I set about getting a number of shots again using manual focus, f5.6, ISO 400 and speed set to 200. Once I got the light right I was soon getting some very nice results and this has to be the best using this style I have managed so far, the green does indeed stand out well and some nice detail was captured of these small water wonders.

Azure Damselfly Nymph

I shall continue to try this and other methods and hopefully continue to learn about this type of photography. Every session is a session nearer to the dragonfly season which with the Canon 7d, I can't wait to build on last years photos. 

Azure Damselfly Nymph