Dragonfly

Occasionally, my backyard throws up shots that are a little bit out of the ordinary. Today I could have had two with the right equipment.

The first involved a mockingbird hanging upside down eating berries from a shrub. It would have taken a 600mm lens at least to have captured the shot. I did venture out with my wife's Ricoh CX1 with its 28-200mm equivalent lens but I only took two steps from the deck and the bird flew off.

A little later I happened to spot a dragonfly perched on one of the Canna Lilies that have featured here from time to time. I went back into the house to get the CX1 and was somewhat surprised to find the dragonfly still sitting there.

The CX1 may only be a P&S camera but it has, like all Ricoh cameras, a great macro capability. And I think this shot speaks for itself in that regard.

I took the JPEG and put it through my usual post-processing procedures, including a B&W version, which can be seen here.

For all my hurrying to take the shot, it turned out that the dragonfly spent the entire day sitting on the seed head of the lily. It is still there.

I took subsequent shots with my GRD III and some with the Zeiss ZE and my Canon, oh for a Zeiss ZE 100/f2 Makro-Planar T*. Oh for the $1,800 it would take to buy one. :-)

Post processing in Photoshop CS3.