Was sat watching the Dragons again on my lunchtime walk today and decided to try and get an in-flight shot. Cranked up the shutter speed a bit and was pleased with the outcome. All handheld with the K5 and DA*300mm.Sunny day forecast for Saturday so I'll be back again to have another go. Might try with the Bigma as well.

With the Bigma... wow you've got some strong forearms!Excellent Migrant Hawker, 2nd shot getting a image looking down is my favourite.

Forearms are not as strong as they were when I was a lot younger.It's a good spot I go to, as the footpath along the reservoir is about 5 feet above the edge / waterline, so a lot of the time I am able to look down on the plants and reedbeds around the edge where these beasties are hunting. Taking note of their regular flightpaths also helps in anticipating their next brief hover point.

All I can say is wow! Fantastic. I have problems getting them when they've landed!Peteo

Wow!Peteowrote:All I can say is wow! Fantastic. I have problems getting them when they've landed!Yup, me too!Peteo

Not trying to hijack your thread but heres a couple with the da300mm and sigma 150-500mm

Are you guys using the "catch-in-focus" feature to get shots like that?I've never tried that (would actually have to read up a bit to know HOW to use it), but I've seen some great results posted here from it. Jeff -- A word is worth 1/1000th of a picture... Maybe that's why I use so many words!

Well done.Joe

My shots are handheld.. --http://www.pentaxphotogallery.com/artists/danedawg...http://www.flickr.com/photos/danedawg/

All my pictures of dragonflies in flight look just like yours...without the dragonfly!Great job! I've seen those and wanted to get a few portraits, but no such luck...Thanks for posting. -- http://www.flickr.com/photos/52664228@N04/

Thanks Peteo.I sometimes have trouble after they have landed too, like the one I was stalking the other day. Each time I brought the camera up to take a shot, it flew off, circled me and landed again in the same spot. On about the 6th time, it flew around me and landed on my right shoulder... I swear I could here the little blighter giggling and saying "lets see you get the shot now matey!"

miles greenwrote: Wow!Peteowrote:All I can say is wow! Fantastic. I have problems getting them when they've landed!Yup, me too!PeteoWow indeed.. still chuffed to have got those shots.

dane dawgwrote:My shots are handheld..Hi dane dawg. I can't remember the last time I used a tripod. I'm always on the move and crawling about through brush so a tripod would be impractical.Nice shots too by the way... good fun isn't it.

Joseph Tainterwrote:Well done.JoeThanks Joe.

capturef22wrote:All my pictures of dragonflies in flight look just like yours...without the dragonfly!Great job! I've seen those and wanted to get a few portraits, but no such luck...Thanks for posting.It took a while to recognise the flight patterns and anticipating where they'd hover briefly on each circuit. Once I had that one nailed, it made the job a lot easier. Single point AF was a challenge though!

JeffAHayeswrote:Are you guys using the "catch-in-focus" feature to get shots like that?I've never tried that (would actually have to read up a bit to know HOW to use it), but I've seen some great results posted here from it. JeffHi JeffI haven't tried catch-in-focus for the dragonflies yet. I was just using single point and AF-S each time it hovered briefly on it's regular flightpath through the reeds.