Paddle-tailed Darner in flight

[Dan Brown]

This is a male Paddle-tailed Darner (I think?) in flight. Captured with a handheld Nikon D200, 80-400mmVR at 400mm, f5.6, 1/1000th sec, manual focus mode, manual exp. mode, spot meter mode, fill flash -2.0 with SB800 plus better beamer. Cropped 50% or so and PP in CS3. This guy was patrolling a small pond in southern Idaho. I watched him for a while and noticed that he would stop and hover in one place every so often. It took some patience, but I was able to capture him hovering several times. C&C appreciated.

[Julie Kenward]

Your patience really paid off Dan! You managed to get an incredibly sharp image (that choice of shutter speed certainly helped!) and you got the blue insect against a complimentary yellow BG...nice work! You might consider lightening just the areas that are especially dark to kind of balance out the BG a bit but that's probably just a personal preference. I find them to be a little bit distracting.

[Mike Moats]

Hey Dan, great details and nice colors. These have to be tough to shoot, and you did very well.

[Robert O'Toole]

The bright blue eyes and the location make it seem more like a Blue-Eyed Darner, any Ode experts out there?

I like the image a lot over all. Action and colors are super!!

Running some NR on the BG and cropping a little to de-center the Dfly would make the image stronger.

Robert

[Dan Brown]

Thanks for the kind comments guys. Robert, I have consulted with my local Ode's expert, author of "Dragonflies and Damselflies of California" Tim Manolis and he thinks that Paddle-tailed is "a reasonable guess" ! I based my "guess" on the structure of the "paddles" that are more visible in this posting of a tightly cropped version of another shot of the individual. According to the above guide, the Blue-eyed Darners paddles have a completely different structure:confused:. I hope that this helps any other "Odes experts" that may be viewing.

[Robert O'Toole]

Thanks for the kind comments guys. Robert, I have consulted with my local Ode's expert, author of "Dragonflies and Damselflies of California" Tim Manolis and he thinks that Paddle-tailed is "a reasonable guess" ! I based my "guess" on the structure of the "paddles" that are more visible in this posting of a tightly cropped version of another shot of the individual. According to the above guide, the Blue-eyed Darners paddles have a completely different structure:confused:. I hope that this helps any other "Odes experts" that may be viewing.

Oh okay thanks for the update. I see what you mean now.

Great looking species!

Robert