Migrant hawker (Aeshna mixta)

[Jerry van Dijk]

I'm still catching up with image processing. This one's from last year. I was waiting to shoot dragonflies in flight along a pond on campus, when this Migrant hawker landed on a nearby cattail. I was able to get a few shots with the lovely autumn light.

D7000, Nikkor 200mm f/4D ED-IF AF Micro, handheld, iso-280, f/4.5, 1/2000 sec.
ACR6.4/CS5, saturated the green BG, slight contrast and clarity adjustment, vibrance, sharpness, NR on BG.

[Jim Bridges]

The colors on the dragonfly are beautiful! It's great to see other species...thanks for posting this one!

[Jerry van Dijk]

Thanks Jim! This is a fairly common species around here. It's common name in Dutch is literally translated "horse biter". Supposedly this species was attracted by the flies around horses. When it's foraging on those flies, it looked like it was attacking the horse, hence the common name.
There's a few related species (within the same genus) flying around in Texas. They're called Darners around there (e.g. Multicolored Darner, Black-tipped Darner, etc.).

[Mat Bingham]

Great picture like the background and the pose. Tail looks a little soft to me.

[Jerry van Dijk]

Thanks Mat! The tail does look a little soft, I'll try some selective sharpening.

[OvidiuCavasdan]

Nice pose and sharpness within dof, very nice colors and fine BG. Agree about the tail

[Ken Childs]

Hey Jerry, the important parts of this dragon look nice and sharp and the colors look wonderful but you might consider desaturating the BG just a bit. As it is now, there seems to be too much competition with the main subject and my eye keeps getting pulled to the left side of the frame. I think cropping a slice from the left is in order.....just enough to put the head of the dragon in the UR ROT position. These are all easy fixes and should improve an already fine image.

[Steve Maxson]

Hi Jerry. You have a strong image here! I like the overall sharpness (I agree about the tip of the tail, but it's certainly not a deal breaker), the low shooting angle, the diagonal of the perch, the clean background, and the way the subject stands out from the background. I would agree with Ken about decreasing the saturation of the greens a little and taking a little off the left side. Overall, this is very well done!

[Jerry van Dijk]

Thanks for all your suggestions. I must note that the greens aren't that in-your-face on my (uncalibrated ) monitor. Here's a version with the greens desaturated a little, more sharpness on the tail and the eye on the UR ROT hotspot (well, sort of). Let me know what you think!

[Steve Maxson]

This looks great, Jerry!