First nice looking Dragonfly

Lord Vetinari

4 shots of the first nice looking dragonfly I've had in the garden- 2 in natural light and 2 flash shots. One problem I had was it insisted on perching in plants with a complex background.

Brian V.

photocat

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miraculously... very lovely. I have no clue about how you get in so close...
You are very talented in this field... Thanks for sharing

MuskyDude

They're all really good Brian your right, beautiful dragonfly. For some reason I like #3 the most. As always Brian well done!



AJ

rainforest1155

The first one is awesome, looks somehow to good to be real. More like a computer graphics demo, but that's nature I guess.
Never seen them this close - with or without camera.

Have to agree with photocat on wondering how you got this close on the last one.

Great work Brian!
Sebastian

rahmonster

Fantastic LV. As always. What a lovely dragonfly

gluwater

Amazing shots. The background colors are very complimentary to the colors of the dragonfly. What lens and flash set up did you use?

Lord Vetinari

Thanks All,
I did use a PS action called paul's Velvia from here http://www.atncentral.com/download.htm to accentuate the colour (supposed to mimick Velvia film), at about 45% opacity.
Still wonder if it's too OTT
Equipment is canon 300D with sigma 105mm EX macro lens and sigma 500 super dg flash flash mounted off comera (when used).
I did use blur on the foliage in the bottom half of #1 as I thought it was too distracting.

The head shot is a 50% crop.
As for getting close, normally find that as long as you move slowly and gradually move in on the subject (in this case taking pics as you go) subjects are normally very cooperative, but I did spook him once (first shot is on a maple tree, others are on a variagated privet which explains the yellow leaf colour).
Shot below is the first one straight after RAW conversion so you can see what I did to it.


Brian V.

Dani

that third shot is simply stunning

beautiful work :

Lord Vetinari

Dani wrote:

that third shot is simply stunning

beautiful work :

Thanks Dani

Brian V.

wanderingeye

Really nice work, as always, Brian. I particularly like #'s 1 and 3 - the fine detail of the wing cell pattern over the fairly busy backrounds works very nicely for me.

tmlphoto

Very nice Brian. I'm glad to see you have found some dragons. The velvia action really works well.

Lord Vetinari

Thanks Thomas and wanderingeye.

Just beginning to get used to the colour from that action.
Brian V.