Eastern Pondhawk on Lily Pad

[Allen Sparks]

Canon Rebel XT, Sigma 70-300 macro @214
ISO 800, f13, 1/250, hand held

[Julie Brown]

Allen, I like the colors and the composition. The body right behind the head seems to be the sharpest area in the image.

[Markus Jais]

I like this a lot. The color of the dragonfly goes very well with the color of the leaf. The water drops are great and I like the diagonal line of the animal. I would crop a bit at the top.

Markus

[Vida van der Walt]

I also like this image Allen. IMHO a pano crop with some off the top will look even nicer. You could also consider removing that halved blemish on the left hand edge. (I still find it very hard to critique these images as I often feel like I'm nitpicking lovely images.):)

[Ken Childs]

Very nice, Allen! The Pondhawks around here always seem to land on ugly brown things. :(

I would also suggest a little off the top and you might have a go at cloning out those brown spots.

[Julie Kenward]

Good comments by all...the crop, the focal point being right past the eyes, and the distracting brown spots everywhere keep this from being all it could be. I'd try resharpening the eyes only, clone everything out that isn't attractive on the lily pad and slice a little off the top.

Nice angle...beautiful wing position...maybe a little more DOF to get the back of the body in the focal plane as well?