Photos

You may be wondering why 2 shots of the same Black-tailed Skimmer (Orthetrum cancellatum).They are an exercise in shooting distances. The one on the LEFT is shot at about 120 -150cm distance using all the sonys Non digital zoom giving a focal length of 45.2mm .The one on the right is the result of a lot of patient stalking and was taken with the lens less than 10cm away from the beastie with a focal length of 9.7mm.
Contrast and compair please?
About the Beastie,
as an Immature it is black and yellow in colour, as it atchieves sexual maturity the Blue wax covering developes and yellow half moons appear down the edges this one is only just getting the yellow bits. to be found around very slow rivers and ponds with exposed areas of mud, like areas where cattle come down to drink and trample the edge foilage. at work the odd male I have seen has alway been seen warming its self on the bare new edges of the lake , twig perching only happens above 26C. and monday was quiet a bit above that :0))))#.
the larvae live in the mud waiting to ambush prey as it passes and takes 2 -3 years to mature before crawling upto 10 metres away from the water to emerge from its larval body shell.
Adjustments to both were identical,
Levels,
saturation +12 lightness -2
contrast +2
sharpen edges , fade back by 25%
crop to simular hieghts , widths left open to be able to get wings in.
place on new background , and resize to TE maximum 28.22cm (800pixels @72dpi)
and use save to web get get file size down to under 200K (193.5K)
monday was a very good day so there is atleast one more dragon fly and a butterfly worth posting.
I forgot to say both where vtaken with the camera set in Macro Mode.