Photographing in Difficult Situations

What do you do when you see an awesome happening - in this case a caterpillar hanging on a silken thread with a beautiful wasp on it and the whole thing is in mid air and blowing in the wind! Not only that, but you have the wrong camera gear to get a good photo!

I had a compact camera with no viewfinder. The auto focus has problems seeing small objects when there is nothing close behind. The camera will try and focus on the background. The light made it difficult to see the back screen properly also.

So ... What do you do?

1. 1. Focus on your hand
3. 2. Hold your hand as close to the camera as it will focus, focus on this and keep your finger half pressed on the focus button
5. 3. With your finger still pressed on the focus button, wait till the subject comes back into range (the breeze was blowing) and estimate the distance that you had pre-focused on and  when it comes into range, take the photo.
7. 4. Do this several times as your hit rate for good photos may be low.

Some cameras have a focus magnifier that you can put onto a function button on your camera. I put mine (Sony RX100) on the centre button of the control wheel. This allows me to see up close when the subject is in focus. It is still not easy, but it helps.

I ended up with only 2 reasonable photos, but it is better than none! It would have been much easier with my larger Sony A 6500 with 90 mm Macro lens. Having a viewfinder helps a lot too.