Migrant hawker in flight

[Jerry van Dijk]

It's been ages since I posted something in the macro forum. Very busy with work and trying my hand at improving my landscape skills.
I've been wanting to get an image like this for ages, but without a DSLR I didn't stand a chance. But I finally pulled one off :S3:! This was actually my first go at it, using the D7000. This is a Migrant hawker (Aeshna mixta) which roam around a pool at the university campus. After studying their behavior and routes around the pool, I strategically positioned myself and waited until one passed at the right distance.

Nikon D7000, Nikkor 200 f/4D IF-ED Micro, handheld, manual focus, Auto-ISO, f/4.5, 1/2000, ISO-560.
ACR 5.4/CS4, cropped, levels, clarity, vibrance, sharpness, selective sharpening of the abdomen (USM), slight gaussian blur on BG.

[denise ippolito]

Jerry, I think the background is gorgeous. Nice flight capture. I like the front wing positions even though it's slightly angled away this is a great shot! Congratulations. I might take a small slice off the bottom if it were mine. The sharpness looks pretty good for a flight shot,-nice one Jerry, thanks for sharing.

[Ron Sprunger]

Wonderful color and sharpness. I love the fact that the whole body is in plane of focus. Very nice capture. I agree with Denise about taking some off the bottom.

[Jeff Parker]

Good job getting a flight shot. Loving that background.

[Jerry van Dijk]

Thanks for commenting! I see your point in cropping from the bottom, but that would mean to crop some of the top as well, to keep the DF on a 1/3 line of the frame. I kind of liked the space all around, to show that he's really going somewhere.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Nicely caught - not an easy shot you did well.

[Andrew McLachlan]

Hi Jerry, nice flight shot for sure, must have been tricky to capture. Nice out of focus background as well. A lovely colorful specimen.

[Steve Maxson]

Hi Jerry. These are not easy to get - and with manual focus at f/4.5 you had very little room for error - I'm impressed! If this was mine, I might try a little more blur on the background so that the darker lines in the LL were less distinct. This is very well done.

[Jerry van Dijk]

Thanks all for commenting! Steve, I'll work on those lines, I already contemplated removing them but decided not to because they show that the BG is natural vegetation. I also liked the fact that they curve out to the left, while other lines in the BG curve out to the right, creating somewhat of a flow in the BG. Toning them down a little using blur as you suggest may be a good solution!

[Ken Childs]

Hey Jerry, I know just how difficult it is to get a shot like this so I'm definitely impressed! I've taken hundreds of shots of flying dragons but I only have 2 that I'm relatively happy with. The BG looks good and should look even better if you follow Steve's advice. I think the dragon could use a bit more sharpening and that should be easy to accomplish.....lately I've been using a combination of high-pass and smart sharpening and that has been producing some good results.

[Jerry van Dijk]

Thanks Ken! I've seen your new sharpening technique applied in some of your recent posts and it looks worthwhile to try it out. I usually do most of my sharpening in ACR and some in PS using USM, but often I'm not quite happy with the results. It might be a good idea to invest some time in learning a good sharpening routine.