Widow Skimmer

[Diane Miller]

At least I think it's a widow skimmer... Canon 7D2, 100-400 II, ISO 400, f/8, 1/320, hand held. I should have set 800 and gone for more DOF and/or a little safer SS. Was walking back from a session of osprey-watching yesterday (more watching than shooting this time) when I spotted this guy (gal??). The abdomen was unfortunately behind a leaf. I hoped to get it in the clear and get it more in the plane of focus by scrambling up a gravel berm about 4 ft high. The top was about 5" wide and I looked down ahead of me to a very steep dropoff to the water way below -- wearing heavy boots and a photo vest laden with more stuff than I needed. So what did I do -- proceeded to lean forward to get a close as possible to this beast and peer through the lens while trying to balance and shoot several bursts. I don't think I'll do that again... And after all that, no way to get around that leaf. At least I tried.

Full frame (tiny crop from the bottom to get rid of junk) and basic adjustments in LR.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Pretty good shot Diane, your self critique looks good to me.
I know people sometimes regard this as heretical but I think Auto ISO and a manual setting is the way forward. (You are still able to over/underexpose by setting the Custom Function) I also set the Lock lever to include shutter and aperture if I am shooting in a fixed locale, if I need to over/underexpose then I have to switch the lock..

[Warren Spreng]

Yep, that is a female Widow Skimmer, the male has pale blue spots outside of the black spots and a pale blue body. Beautiful detail and I like the BG. The leaf gives me the impression that it is crawling up the plant so doesn't bother me. This is the male from a point and shoot years ago for your reference.

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