Last week I stopped by Swan Lake Nature Sanctuary with my K-1 and FA* 200mm Macro looking for dragonflies. Blue dragonflies are quite common there, but I've never seen a red one in person before. All the blue ones were busy flying around but this red one decided to pose for me for about 30 minutes! It would land on a branch one or two feet away from the boardwalk railing, I'd take a few shots, then it'd take off for a short flight before landing in a different position on the same branch. It really seemed like it was trying different poses for me!

My battery wasn't fully charged and it ended up running out after 127 shots. It was windy so I had to use a high shutter speed. Too bad, as I wish I could have stopped down more. Very few of my shots were cropped, and if so only slightly. The full resolution 25-36 mega-pixel images are blowing my mind! What do you think? Which is your favorite?

f/11, 1/200th, ISO 400:




f/11, 1/320th, ISO 640:



f/13, 1/250th, ISO 640:




f/8, 1/400th, ISO 400:




f/11, 1/400th, ISO 800:




There are more shots on my Flickr page too, and lots more for me to post process later.

[eaglem]

That is a vivid Red so it stands out.............well spotted.

[sherrvonne]

The eyes look like faceted ruby gems!

[mole]

Great shots of one of my favorite group of dragonflies - the Meadow Hawks. Not sure which species you have here, but sure are some fine portraits!

[Tonytee]

Wonderful set of photos. I must go with the second one down. The insect seems to be saying, "I'm here, dude, do your thing." Nice bokeh, excellent exposure and very sharp where it should be. I like the settings you used, very interesting and remarkable results with a telephoto. Good quality work here.

Many thanks,

Antonio

[Unregistered User 8]

Red Dragonfly

Excellent series of photographs seanix. You have shown me something that I had no idea existed. Thanks.

[TER-OR]

Meadowhawks are colorful for sure - right up there with the pennants.

I can't tell them apart in the field, the male/female coloration makes it really confusing. They do like to pose for shots though, which is nice. (unlike darners)

Great series.

[slowpez]

Enjoyed the series. Quite a brilliant shade of red.

[seanix]

Thanks everyone! I should mention I processed these in Lightroom and other than exposure adjustments I only did slight saturation tweaks in the form of -2 saturation +5 vibrance give or take, and I used the "Camera - Natural" profile.

[Kerrowdown]

Amazing... think we only get the boring wee green jobbies here, never seen a red one before.