Eastern Amberwing

[Tim Vidrine]

After chasing this little dragonfly around for about an hour in my back yard, it finally landed high enough for me to get the dark greens of the woods in the BG. This is the first amberwing for me. Very small, skittish dragonfly. Raw conversion in BB Pro using the combined conversion method due to flashing highlighs on the flower petals.

6/21/08 7:30am
Canon 40D
Canon 180mm Macro
1/80s, f/7.1, iso1000
Manual exposure
Eval metering
Fill flash @ -2
Tripod

Thanks,

[Julie Kenward]

Tim, you're making my mouth water for that 180mm macro...now stop it! :D This is really well done. There's no sign of a flash being used even on the eyes! Really nice work here. BG, comp, everything - delightful to look at.

[Tim Vidrine]

Julie, thanks. I really do like this lens.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hi Tim,
Only a bit of a better wing position would put this one totally over the top. Everything is tack sharp and that's one sweet BG. Still very nicely done!

[Robert O'Toole]

Light is nice and soft and the perch is great. I usually do not like pancake wing DF images but this one is nice, at least this way the body is parallel.

Robert

[Kaushik Balakumar]

Oh my god - what details ! Tack sharp.

Perhaps I would crop off some region from the left + bottom of the frame & inturn provide the same space in front of the dragonfly + top of the frame (but just a personal taste).

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3099/2600183382_2c47f3e696_o.jpg

Re-post: cropped from left & bottom. Added canvas on top & right side. The added canvas section might look a bit shabby - pardon me for that.

[Tim Vidrine]

Thanks guys.

Robert,
I tried to get a little lower, but this guy was pretty skittish and had moved on previous attempts.

Kaushik,
Thanks for taking the time to rework the image. I really like what you did. Still learning this comp stuff. I tried to use the rule of thirds on this image with the eye on the upper right intersect.

[Chris Ober]

Sweet image. The dew is a nice bonus. Great detail and I do like the cropped one.

[Stephen Stephen]

Tim beautiful details and colour in this image. I wish that it were mind. Do you have any images with a different wing angle?

[Sharna Lee]

What can I say that hasn't already been said? Nadda! This is one heck of a perfect image. I love that colorful dragon with that beautiful green bg. Sweet!

Sharna

[John Cooper]

A lovely capture Tim. Excellent detail, BG and composition and the perch just tops it off nicely. Very well seen and taken!!! (I like the original post best).

[Jonathan Michael Ashton]

A great shot, beautiful colours and exposure, great detail especially for such a high ISO
Jon

[Tim Vidrine]

Thanks everyone.

Stephen, I was only able to get a couple of images with this background and all have the same wing placement. I have another image on a different perch, but the fore wing crosses the eye a bit. I find these little fellows don't cooperate very well and they don't come back once disturbed.

[Mike Moats]

Hey Tim, very nice job on this one. I like the cropped version from Kaushik, always remember when positioning with critters, that you have them looking into the scene, so with this image you want him on the left third.

[Tim Vidrine]

Thanks Mike. I appreciate the info. I still have a lot to learn!