Frozen but Thawing Dragonfly

[Terry Olmsted]

Discovered on a frosty morning in the grasses of the Skagit Flats in Northwestern Washington. The dragonfly was totally frozen when I first saw it and then it began to thaw as the sun rose. I think it flew off later, but did not see it do so.

Canon XTi, 24-70 f2.8L 1/800s f4.5 ISO 400 hand held taken 11/2/07

[Alfred Forns]

That is one cool bug .... no pun intended !!!! I like the Dfly Terry sharp and well presented Only wish you could have moved around for a better bg Not often you find a frozen subject !!!! Neat !!!

[Pete Woods]

That is one cool bug .... no pun intended !!!! I like the Dfly Terry sharp and well presented Only wish you could have moved around for a better bg Not often you find a frozen subject !!!! Neat !!!

Luckily not DEAD COOL

A rare capture for sure... Well Done... Just shows how hardy these little fella's are :)

[Terry Olmsted]

Thanks very much, Pete. Great to hear from you! Exoskeletons, rock!

Al, you are tough!!! Here's another shot. The challenge was getting the sunlight (which we have precious little of) to refract off the ice and water. Here's a little different angle - dof was a challenge, as ususal :)
Terry

[Robert O'Toole]

Like the image alot.
I like that the wing on the edge isnt noticeable at all as it is in the backlit second image. Usually this is a problem shooting D-Flys, I find an OOF focus wing on edge usually very distracting.

The first image looks a bit noisy, was the image underexposed at capture?

Robert

[Terry Olmsted]

HI Robert,
Thanks for your comment and evaluation! The first image was just very slightly over-exposed, but it is a significant crop. I have gotten so used to noise because of our typically poor lighting that I am not as sensitive to it as I should be. The second photo was taken closer and is a less severe crop.
Terry

[Robert O'Toole]

Hi Terry

I am a D-Fly nut by the way so I like both images, I actually prefer the dramatic lighting in the second, but the OOF wing is a bit distracting, but I know how it hard it is in the field to get everything 100% perfect. I like em both anyway.

Robert

[Terry Olmsted]

Thanks, Robert. As you can probably imagine, I tried several different angles and settings, since a frozen creature is certainly easier than a moving one. These two were the best of the lot - the lighting was a challenge.
Terry