Dragonflies have amazing compound eyes that wrap around their heads. With up to 30,000 facets (ommatidia, to be technical), dragonflies have incredible vision and can even see colors beyond human visual capabilities, like UV light. For an easy to read discussion about dragonfly eyes, i.e. not overly scientific, check out this posting by “grrl Scientist” that was posted on scienceblogs.com.
I captured this close-up image of a Great Blue Skimmer dragonfly (Libellula vibrans) yesterday at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge. At least once a season, I manage to get a shot like this when a cooperative dragonfly lets me get close. I captured the image below with my trusty Tamron 180mm macro lens on my Canon 50D DSLR. This lens, which has a longer focal length than most macro lenses, gives me some stand-off distance so I can get a macro shot like this without actually being on top of the subject. The only downside to the lens is that it has no built-in image stabilization, so I have to pay extra attention to remaining steady when shooting with it—I generally use a monopod to help reduce camera shake and I think it helped for this image.
The image is framed just as I saw it in my viewfinder. Most of the time I end up cropping my images as part of my normal post-processing, but in this case it looked pretty good without any cropping whatsoever.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved
You certainly got the title right, Mike. Those are amazing.
Very nice capture, Mike!
When I read the title to this post, I thought…this is for Benjamin. The photo is amazing indeed, enlarged it is phenomenal! As you know, with Benjamin it is all about the details. He will love this photo! Thank-you, Mr. Mike!!
A shot like this reminds me of why I love to shoot with my macro lens, which lets me capture details I would never see otherwise.
Gorgeous!
Wow! Those eyes are spectacular.
Nice image Mike! Their eyes are amazing!
Thanks, Reed.
Excellent!
Great capture!
Thanks. I love my macro lens!
Benjamin says : “Whoa, these eyes are awesome!” He kept repeating “wow” as I read the condensed post to him and when I finished he said : “Dragonflies are amazing and bestest!” Thank-you, Mr. Mike!!
I definitely think the eyes are worth several rounds of “Wow.” Thanks for sharing his reaction, and I hope that you liked those eyes too.
Cool! Those eyes look like blue tinted aviator sunglasses.