Dragonflies and coloured paper

[Narmer]

As Tchuanye would say, "I was bored", s oI tried some variations on DF macros with colored papers as background







Other pics (gallery pages 13, 14):
LINK

Narmer

[Macnite]

Holy macro!! What a great idea!!!Beautifully done Narmer. Very sharp and colourful.

[bayourebel]

I agree with Mcnite, beautifully done. But I have to ask, How do you get the DF to stay there, while you set up to take the photo?

Jerry

[Narmer]

Thanks Macnite and Bayourebel

Bayou, you are right.
Indeed when I first went to make macros July 17, that place in central Italy (Matese) named Valley (or Canyon) of Hell was literally full of DFs.
Just 2 weeks later only very few remained.
In this case I was lucky for I was just thinking to find dead DFs (please note, not to kill any) when I stumbled in this one which seemed inactive. I made nearly an hour of pics with various settings and colored papers.
Then I removed it from the leaf and found out it was not dead because the legs slowly moved. I picked it toeventually bring it home when I saw a snake (photos in the my gallery page 13) so I left it on a stone to catch the snake and later I forgot to re-take the DF...
I made few DF pics that day but caught two snakes (obviously releasing them after some shots)

Narmer

PS note that both #1 and #2 here could have been much improved if I had copied and pasted the eyes from a pic where they were in perfect focus, like the following one (which I did not do):

[tchuanye]

Very well taken Narmer! I like the details captured and the BG is a good idea!

[Narmer]

Thank you, Tchuanye.

[vaiboy]

Those shots are unreal. The detail on the eyes is amazing. There aren't many dragonflies around here. When I did have a chance to get pictures of some in Texas I couldn't get close enough to use anything other than the tele-macro mode. Someday I hopeI can get some shots as nice as those.

[Narmer]

Thank you, Vaiboy

Believe me, even those who post the best macros, deletefar morepics than the ones they retain.

In my case at the mid of July, that place was really the reign of DF, so it was easy to find more cooperative ones.

It is even harder to obtain good shots with FZ20-30 tele macro (although I often use it for Butterflies) without direct sunlight: this will get you 1/500 or faster times, but on the other hand that kind of light is not ideal for the mood of macros.

I recently used the only Nikon 5T for Damselflies pics, and was not so impressed by the results (direct sunlight, also on the LCD andthere waswind). Hard to detect the focus (maybe for 5T alone is too weak). Far better to use a +3 like 6T or 5T + 6T, even if you won't always zoom to 12x.

My first DF macros here were taken at 2,5x zoom as close as I could get:
LINK (3 pics in the mid of the page)
but as you can see there is quite no comparison with the 15 ones taken with 5T+6T here:
LINK p. 13

Narmer

[willow1]

sweeeeet shots my man....gatta love the colors in all of them

wILLOw

[Narmer]

Thank you Willow1