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Thread: Paddle-tailed Darner in flight

  1. #1
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    Default Paddle-tailed Darner in flight

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    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.

  2. #2
    Julie Kenward
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    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.

  3. #3
    Mike Moats
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    Hey Dan, great details and nice colors. These have to be tough to shoot, and you did very well.

  4. #4
    Robert O'Toole
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    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

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    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.

  6. #6
    Robert O'Toole
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dan Brown View Post
    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

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