Common Green Darner in flight

Image Critiques Macro/Close-up Critiques
1

Common Green Darner.jpg
Common Green Darner.jpg3301×2550 2.98 MB

Critique Style Requested: Standard

The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.

Description

This may be counterintuitive, but my home ground, the Sonoran Desert of Arizona, is actually one of the hotspots in the United States for dragonflies and damselflies. We have at least 117 species recorded, and the number is growing.

The Common Green Darner is one of our more common dragonflies. It’s a powerful flyer and, like almost all other dragonflies, really difficult to capture in flight. But every so often, a Common Green Darner will slow down a bit. At that moment, it’s a little easier to capture the animal.

I’m utterly unable to see flying dragonflies in the viewfinder of my camera. They are too fast and twisty, and the field of view is too small. Instead of the viewfinder, I use a red dot finder.

Often, the most interesting part of a dragonfly image is the intricate detail in the wings. It’s easy to capture that detail when a dragonfly is at rest. Nailing the detail with a dragonfly in flight is a whole different story. Once in a while, you get lucky with the detail, and this photograph might be a good example.

I’ve been experimenting with different sharpening techniques. Currently, I’m using a home brew macro in Affinity Photo. The macro performs detail enhancement based on wavelet decomposition. The image is decomposed with multiple high-pass filters, and then these results are blended.

Specific Feedback

I’m interested in all of your comments.

Technical Details

OM-1 Mk2 150mm 1/5000 F7.1 ISO 6400

Critique Template

Use of the template is optional, but it can help spark ideas.

  • Vision and Purpose:
  • Conceptual:
  • Emotional Impact and Mood:
  • Composition:
  • Balance and Visual Weight:
  • Depth and Dimension:
  • Color:
  • Lighting:
  • Processing:
  • Technical:
2

Russ: What a great capture and one that I’m insanely jealous of. At our local water garden I’m constantly teased by the dragonflies hovering for just a moment and then zipping off before I can get the camera on them. I’m curious about your red dot finder. I’ve never thought of using one so any insights/recommendations you could provide would be much appreciated.

As for the image itself, great plane of focus management and a great BG. On my monitor the details on the head look a little blown but the wing detail is superb. What is your frame rate when chasing these guys? Whatever, this is a terrific image. >=))>

3

Hi Bill, and thanks for your comments. I agree that the head is featureless. Could be wrong, but the issue might be that the sun was shining directly at the head, so there was relatively little contrast.

I know from my astronomy days that red dot finders became popular as aiming devices for relatively small telescopes. They were useful for “star hopping”. That kind of telescope navigation is rare these days, because so many people just push a button and let the software and hardware find their targets.

I have two red dot finders. One is made by OM System and is relatively small and inexpensive. But it works pretty well. The other is called a “PGD Tracker”, and can be found on PhotoGearDesigns.com. It’s considerably more robust (and expensive) than the OM System device.

4

Russ: How do you connect them to your camera? Is there a hot shoe attachment or do you have to improvise?

5

Both devices attach to the hot shoe. The website for the PGD Tracker does a good job of describing the main applications. One is photographing wildlife through very long telescopic lenses and the other is tracking birds in flight. They don’t mention close-in photography of flying bugs, but both devices have been helpful for me.

6

Dragonfly wingbeats are fairly slow and you might get motion stoppage at a much slower shutter speed. Try between 1/3000 and 1/4000 sec and that may give you enough shutter speed to freeze the wings. There is a lot of clipping going on and even after adjusting the exposure and highlights in Adobe Camera Raw, a small amount of detail was recovered. So, use a lower ISO which will provide better colors and shading. One dragonfly photographer in the UK uses a 400 ISO and gets the colors down pat. You certainly nailed the tough part getting the dragonfly fairly sharp. I can’t wait to see your future results as you hone your skills for the perfect shot. Awesome attempt!..Jim