Raging Dragon

Hi Roger,

Perhaps a bit more details as to what you did to accomplish this shot would be helpful to many readers.

First, dragonflies normally do not cooperate for close-ups like this. So, is this a dead dragonfly, frozen or drugged , mounted on a card, what  ?

The working distance must have been extremely close, so were extension tubes used ? At F/32, the normal close focus 90mm lens would have much more DOF. There are many 90mm lens , no specific one was mentioned.

The foreground appears distorted, as if this was not a macro lens but a normal 90mm lens used at excessive magnification where its optical characteristics fall outside its designed range.

ISO 320 at 1/8 second indicates that this was done at higher than 1:1 magnification, since F/32 under normal lighting using requires an exposure starting at 1/60 or so seconds.

Anyway, I could speculate for hours and write a book, but my point is simply to provide more details.

No comment on the image quality other than it is greatly compromised.

Best Regards,  Mike

Thanks for your comments Mike and for taking an interest. With regards to your questions.

Firstly I can assure you the Dragonfly was alive and amazingly I had around 2 minutes of shooting time as it consistently returned to its one favorite advantage spot. The weather was cool so it may have been sluggish, which allowed me to take around 20 snaps some of which may appear later.

The lens is a standard 90mm Tamron and I took shots from F16 to over F32, hand held, using exposure compensation where necessary.

This image suffered from lack of focus due to being hand held but I still thought it had potential as something to work on in Photoshop, which is why I placed this in the abstract category. The blur/DOF has been created by layering steadily larger versions of the original behind and zoom blurring at differrent successive rates.

Regards

Roger

Hi Roger,

Thanks for the details. You are most fortunate to have had a dragonfly stay around for such a period of time and allow your nearby presence as well. Perhaps the cooler conditions do play a role. Here in Florida, I know that my experiences are measured in a second or two, before the dragonflies take flight.

I like the techniques that you describe in processing, too.

There are programs available that allow stacking of images to create greater DOF and 3D models of a wide range of subjects, too. I have used "Helicon Focus and Helicon 3D" in some of my scientific studies. These are well written and effective programs. They work best with a tripod setup.

Best regards,  Mike