On the far side of 40 Acre Lake, I found a place where the dragonflies were buzzing. I watched them for while. Finally, I spotted a place that had a perfect view of three different branches that dragonflies were using for perches. I put my tripod in the center of the area and waited for my subjects to land. I really like my shooting spot because I had unobstructed view of three different branches where the dragonflies were landing and each had an extremely simple background of green moss. The spot was also a great distance for the lens I was using--I could fill the frame with the dragonflies.
There was just enough wind that I had to use a relatively fast shutter speed to make sure that I got the dragonflies sharp. Luckily, I had lost of sunshine, which I needed since I was shooting at f/16 with a polarizing filter on the front of my lens.
Today’s image is about the dragonfly's form and the simple complementary colors—orange, red and green.
Enjoy.
Camera settings: Nikon D700, 300mm f/4 with 1.7x Nikon Teleconverter and polarizing filter attached, shot at ISO 200, f/16 and 1/250th of a second on a tripod.
Post Processing:
Lightroom—Set white and black points, added mid-tone contrast and tweaked the hue and saturation of red, orange and green.
Photoshop—used nik Color Efex Pro tonal contrast filter on the dragonfly and the branch to increase the local contrast of the highlights, mid-tones and shadow areas and then added a boarder using onOne Photoframe.
Great detail on the dragon fly. You usually do not get to see them this closely.
ReplyDeleteMarcia
I have tried many times to photograph dragonflies, but have never gotten a photo that is this good. I like the way that some of the wings are slightly out of focus, it seems to show the depth of the image. Nice photo.
ReplyDeleteDebbie
I know how difficult it is to get in a good position to get this shot. Most people try for early morning, when they are not yet active, to get this close.
ReplyDeleteI really like this one Larry. Color, composition and focus are excellent.
DHaass
I like this dragonfly better than the ducks. I tend to use diagonals and you have two such lines to add power to the image.
ReplyDelete