I therefore started my way back, slowly walking along the natural ground road, where possible insects were well visible. As a first effect, slowing down  allowed to open my eyes over the world of many other beings, that I could not see before. But, still no tiger beetles were in sight; already beyond half of my way, starting  loosing trust, some of them started appearing. The first shot attempts were unfruitful: not even the time to lift up the camera, and the tiger beetle was already gone.

But then came another one, still fast, but sometimes resting for a while. With some patience to follow it, and not let it going out of sight, during its sudden flights and movements, I succeeded to take some shots. I have my tiger beetle pictures!

Technical notes

Maybe that in many circumstances the photographic apparatus does not matter but, in this case, if I did not have my 400 mm lens, with 2x and the sensor set to DX mode, for a total of 1200 mm, that allowed me to shot from over 1 metre distance, I think that I could not have my tiger beetle photos.

And then, it was a full sun day, with a lot of shades: the situations normally believed not appropriate to take good shots. But, also in this case, intense light allowed to shot at high speed, around 1/2000, and this was really the only way to fix such a fast animal. And, all this, with an automatic sensor sensitivity setting, that pushed ISO at very high levels, perhaps not the best for orthodox hardliner photographs. And, finally, with shady weather often the tiger beetles simply disappear.