It’s prime season now for dragonflies and there are lots of them flying about. Some are brightly colored and gaudy, while others, like this Slaty Skimmer (Libellula incesta) that I encountered Tuesday at Huntley Meadows Park, have a more subdued and refined beauty.
I have been experimenting a bit with lenses and with camera settings as I chase after dragonflies. Although I often use my macro lens for this kind of shot, I took this one at 270mm of my 70-300mm telephoto zoom. I have been told that most telephoto lenses are a little soft at their extreme ends, so I pulled back a little from 300mm. Similarly, I shot this at f/10 to try to get a balance between sharpness and depth of field, while keeping the shutter speed high enough for me to easily handhold the camera.
Most of the time I use evaluative metering on my camera, but for most of my shots on Tuesday, I had the camera set for spot metering. In doing so, I realized quickly that I had to pay a lot more attention to the precise spot on which I was focusing, because that was going to play a disproportionate role in determining the exposure.
I realize, of course, that a lot of the choices will be situationally dependent, but it’s fun and instructive to try out new settings and combinations of settings in trying to improve the quality of my images. (Click on the image to see a higher resolution view of this dragonfly.)
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Mike Powell 
Looks a bit like a stealth fighter..:-))
Most definitely–sort of like a ninja dragonfly.
An amazing shot Mike!
Thanks, Robert. I appreciate your enthusiastic response, though I am not sure that I deserve and “amazing.” I was pleased to be able to catch this dragonfly perching in a location where I had a clear shot with an unobstructed background, which is a bit unusual.
Ok, a lucky shot Mike, I still thinks it’s amazing 🙂
This individual is an adult male, as indicated by its coloration and terminal appendages.
I like this shot. The background really helps make the dragonfly pop.
It almost looks like a studio shot, but I think the background was simply water and I was fortunate enough that the dragonfly perched where he did.
Terrific shot, Mike. The spot meter and focus are dead on.
Thanks. This one was cooperative and I was able to take my time with the shot.
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