Staying with the colour theme this is a dragonfly from this morning. Only had the 16-45 on me so that's what I had to use:



Aperture priority, spot focus, 45mm, F7.1 shot in raw and processed with Silkypix. 1/800 for first pic and 1/2000 for second pic. Due to the highlights on the wings and in background turned the exp way down (-1) so they wouldn't blow out and fixed it in processing later. I am learning to love Raw.

[roentarre]

I like the 2nd shot where the compo is excellant.

The blue colour is rich in deed. Amazing that you could capture this shot with 45mm focal length. You must be quite close to the subject and managing not to disturb it at the same time...

[Arjay Bee]

Thanks for the comment, Roenterre.
About 9:00am so still not very hot (for Bamaga) and the dragonfly was still warming up in the sun. She was a bit skittish at first but as I slowly worked closer she would fly off and come back to the same spot and adjust her wing angle and body position. It was like a live model shoot.

The second shot was the last one I took and I was at the limit of the close focusing range of the 16-45 lens which is about 25cm which put the front of the lens hood about 10-12cm from the dragonfly.

I switched the camera to continuous focus mode and to spot focus and bent way down while gauging the distance. At this position I was unable to look through the viewfinder without falling in the dam. When the lens focused at its minimum distance I pressed the shutter. One of those Olympus type viewing screens would have been useful but this work around worked okay.

[clarenceclose]

The color is amazing, the wing details, especially on the second one pretty amazing since you had to hand hold it too.

Odd positions of photography often lead to visit to back specialist.

[Arjay Bee]

Clarence the light was very strong the aperture middle of the road so the shutter speed was so high I could have been standing on a rocking punt

Thank you for the warning on the backstrain. I get annoyed enough at the grass and mud stained knees.

[little laker]

My doctors don't even have to look at my file, they automatically know that it's back or neck related when I make an appointment

Beautiful pic's as well, I still haven't had a dragonfly pause long enough for a pic yet.

[Arjay Bee]

Thanks, little laker. Try early mornings when they still haven't warmed up and aren't as zippy. Just sitting quietly just near where they was can work as they often come back to the same spot. They respond to movement so you can just about have the camera on top of them if it isn't moving or threatening.

[little laker]

Thanks Arjay, I'll have to try that in the spring when they're out again

[Dana G]

Beautiful shot! In the second one he looks like a dangerous military jet about to launch!

You have great control with RAW, the images are really well done!

[roy]

RJ,
i've got a shot almost identical to the 2nd. i used a smc200mm f4 with 60mm extention tube. it gives just the right mag for shots like this but also working distance of close to a meter. i'll post it if you want me too. hate hi-jacking a thread..

[Arjay Bee]

Not hijacking, extending....

Would love to see. The use of longer but close focussing lenses is a challenge for me. Do enjoy looking at all the variations in a class of insects.

Dana: thanks for the compliment re raw. I like silkypix and the price was great (free). Played with it a bit then went back to JPEGs a couple of times. Now I find the pp in PS7 is really minimised by doing the conversion and shrrpening in raw. PS just does the resizing and cropping. I thought the work flow woulsd slow down due to two sets of pp but in fact it is a little quicker. If I spring for the full version batch processing wil be even more time saving for series of similar images.

[Alvin]

WOW! The colour on that dragonfly is really amazing! Not much else to say. Speechless is the word for it tonight.