Three Damselfly Shots

Beetleman · Post by **Beetleman** » Wed Jun 14, 2006 5:11 am

I am going to get my three posts out of the way early today. I shot these pictures yesterday and they are related so I figured I post them together. The first shot is a damselfly I found in a field of tall grass, the next two shots are from a black & metallic Damselfly that flew into my back yard. I was sitting down eating dinner with the family and I saw the thing out the window, I shot up and grabbed the camera and bolted out the door, much to the shock of everyone.

The damselfly landed on a leaf about head high near my back fence, which made for a hard angle to shoot. After about ten shots, It flew over the fence. Was very windy yesterday also, was surprised the pictures came out as well as they did. I like the spines on the legs, looks like they would make a great basket for catching food

nephiliim · Post by **nephiliim** » Wed Jun 14, 2006 12:34 pm

I like that dark one a lot Doug, the darkest we have over here are just a tad darker than grass green.

I saw a sand / kaki coloured one this afternoon, but the mosquito's just keep mugging me, think I lost a pint of blood today.

All the best,

Tom Burger

By the way, has anyone noticed that the black spot on their eyes seems to follow you around while the damselfly itself sits still? Or is this just an illusion?

Beetleman · Post by **Beetleman** » Wed Jun 14, 2006 1:19 pm

Yes, I know what you mean about the skeeters. Right now the skeeters and blackflies are terrible here. I took these shots in a place that has about five acres of swamp, and they were all over me. I will have to keep and eye out for the eye thing

(what did I just say?) heehee......Thank you Tom

nephiliim · Post by **nephiliim** » Wed Jun 14, 2006 1:20 pm

LMAO!!!

Ken Ramos · Post by **Ken Ramos** » Wed Jun 14, 2006 6:11 pm

Wow what a great bunch of shots Doug.

I think I would have to for go dinner for a bit to capture these. Excellent work!

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Wed Jun 14, 2006 10:21 pm

nephiliim wrote:By the way, has anyone noticed that the black spot on their eyes seems to follow you around while the damselfly itself sits still? Or is this just an illusion?

Depends on what you mean by "illusion".

Nothing physically moves except your head. But yeah, the black spot moves too.

Here's what's going on.

Each ommatidium is essentially a lens in front of an optical waveguide that leads down to a photoreceptor.

When you view an ommatidium from the side, you see either reflection from the surface of the lens or you look through the lens and see the region just below it. Either way, it looks bright.

But when you look straight down into an ommatidium, you look through the lens into the waveguide and down to the photoreceptor. Not much light gets back out that path, so those ommatidia look dark.

As you move around, you change which ommatidia you're looking straight down into. So the patch of ommatidia that looks dark moves to follow you. No magic, just kind of an eerie effect!

--Rik