I had a very cooperative Halloween pennant dragonfly on Saturday, so I decided to try to get a shot of the wings in vertical position. Apparently, this species will raise its wings up to balance itself during wind gusts. The small aperture and teleconverter cost me some detail in the image.
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Pertinent technical details or techniques:
Z9 200-400mm f4 + 1.4 teleconverter (F22 at 1/120 sec., Iso 800) Topaz DeNoise AI, Crop for Comp, Desaturated the greens and yellows in the BG.
You and Diane are killing it! Need to up my dragonfly game for sure. Maybe today although the light probably won’t cooperate. What a fantastic pose and background. So glad you had the patience to wait for it. Nice details, too, I think I see a couple of mites on its side. What a striking species. Not sure we have those here.
Thank you @Kris_Smith . Halloween pennants should be fairly common in Wisconsin. Find a weedy field near a pond and you should be able to find one with no problem. I often find them together with calico pennants, which are smaller than Halloween pennants and perch closer to the ground…Jim
Hi Jim, one of my favorite dragonflies. The sharpness in the wings is really great. Maybe some sharpness fall off in the thorax and abdomen as you mention but not enough to be a real problem. I like the spider web coming from the abdomen and perch. Great background. Well done image.
Geez, this is sensational, Jim. I will have to try something along these lines sometime. I love the pose and the position in the frame. It looks like there’s a strand (web) from the back of the dragon fly down to the twig. Is that right?
Jim, the patience paid off to capture this nice image with the dragonfly’s wings up. That nice smooth BG really makes him standout nicely. Yes, I see the web from the DF to the perch too! Nice shot.
Gorgeous!!! An amazing species with excellent detail and a very interesting perch. I’m pretty sure I’ve sometimes seen threads of spiderwebs on perched dragonflies like that, attached to the perch. I’m guessing they pick them up in flight or maybe just on final to the landing, and somehow snag them on the perch. It seems strange and unlikely, though – I’ll start paying more attention.
The ones I find around here are drab in comparison to the ones I see posted from the east. I understand there is some variety in different locations, which I should explore.
