Last Tuesday I spent a blistering day on the Solway Coast with some guys from my Camera Club photographing Dragonflies & Damselflies. The activity was quieter than usual, maybe because of the heat and maybe because I usually go earlier on right at the start of summer, but there were still photographic opportunities to be had.

This image of an Emerald Damselfly was taken with in-camera focus stacking. I have an Olympus EM1 MKII and a macro lens and the in camera stabilisation is really good. So this picture was hand held with an aperture of F/3.2,with focus bracketing set to take 10 images which were stacked together within the camera to give me a jpeg which is sharp throughout the focal plane. In other words, the wings furthest away are as in focus as the wings closest to the camera, which is almost impossible to do with a single shot. I could have set my aperture to, for example, F/14 which would have given me a fully sharp Damselfly, but then the background would also have been in focus rather than having this lovely blurry, soft bokeh. Of course, focal stacking only works if the subject is still long enough for the camera to take all 10 shots!

I went for a litter potter away from the ponds and saw something moving in the grass by the edge of the path, so I crouched down to investigate. I then sat mesmerised as a still alive Damselfly had its head spun in a web by a Spider, who then took the Damselfly’s head between its 2 front legs and injected it with paralysing venom. The Spider then proceeded to feast at which I decided to move on!

Then on Monday this week I went with some friends on a return visit to our local Badger hide. We’d been disturbed by the public on our visit in April, so the hide owners kindly asked us back this month. I was hopeful we’d see some babies but it sadly wasn’t to be. We did see 2 females, though, one of whom looked like she was either pregnant or lactating. The vegetation in July, we discovered, was too long to get any clear shots but I still think this picture is cute and it also gives an idea of the Badger’s natural environment.

This image was taken with a 150-300mm zoom lens, the equivalent on a full frame camera to a 300-600mm lens, and an aperture of F/6.3 which is the lowest my zoom lens will go to. The difficulty, of course, with Badgers is that they’re crepuscular and although it was a lovely summers evening it was dusk before they were seen. A long lens and low lighting means my ISO was up at 2500, which inevitably caused the dreaded noise in my shot. I use Topaz DeNoise software to get rid of it afterwards in post processing.

There is nothing more fascinating to me than photographing wildlife. The excitement as you sit there waiting for something to happen, the camera skills needed for rapidly changing lighting, movement and environment and just the sheer pleasure of watching the natural world. Food for the Soul.