Calico Pennant

[Steve Maxson]

Back in June when the Calico Pennant dragonflies (Celithemis elisa) were emerging along the lakeshore where I live, I brought a newly emerged individual into my lightbox studio to photograph. It was not yet ready to fly - as the wings are being pumped up to full size they are held vertically over the back - once they are full-sized and harden, the wings are held horizontally in the typical dragonfly manner and the first flight is imminent. Also at this stage the wings are very shiny and the body colors are rather muted. 1D-IV, 100 mm macro, 1/160, f/16, ISO 100, lightbox studio, 2 radio-triggered 430 EXII flashes, hand held. The background is a print of OOF vegetation. All comments are welcome and appreciated.

[Allen Sparks]

Beautiful image Steve of one of my favorite dragonflies - wish I could find them more often down here. The details are superb especially for hand held. You really captured the shiny nature of the wings on this teneral - well done. Really works with this background too. Did you use diffusers on your flashes? Sharp throughout as well - lovely image.

Allen

[Dave Johnson]

Crickey Steve, that is an absolute belter! Great DOF and detail. Personally I like to photograph things in the field, but I can certainly see the benefits of controlled set ups when looking at photographs like these! Well done.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Just about perfect Steve - great shot focus colours composition - everything excellent. Being really picky I suppose some could wish for the twig to continue a little higher up but it really doesn't bother me, this is a quite typical position of a number of species i.e. right on the end of the twig.

[Steve Maxson]

Thanks for the comments Allen, Dave, and Jon!

Allen - No diffusers are used on the flashes. They are positioned in the lightbox such that the subject is lit only by reflected light. Also, the speed of the flashes stops camera and subject motion so hand holding at 1/160 is not a problem. :S3:

[Diane Miller]

This is simply drop-dead gorgeous!! Perfect choice of BG color, too.

The "shutter speed" from the flash would be awesome but I think I'd have trouble keeping the distance to subject stable, but maybe I'm underestimating AI Servo.

[Ron Conlon]

Just a wonderful shot, and a lot of biological knowledge in setting it up.

[nick clayton]

Superb lighting, colours, background, pose and detail, this is a killer image Steve.

[Steve Maxson]

Thanks for the comments Ron, Diane, and Nick!

Diane: The servo focus of the current Canon 100 mmm macro lens is very effective for this type of shot. :S3: I almost never have an OOF image from the lightbox except occasionally when an insect is walking rapidly towards me.

[Diane Miller]

Good to know, Steve. I think I need to get one -- my 180 Sigma (now a generation old, I think) is good for more working distance but AF speed is pathetic, even though it's an f/3.5.