photoartflightIt Is Dragonfly Season
Some of my favorite photo subjects are Dragonflies and Damselflies. Here are a few Dragonflies to start with. The featured image is a photo of a female Calico Pennant. I was using a 300mm lens that has a close focusing capability, with a 1.4X Teleconverter for a combined focal length of 420mm.
Blue Dasher Dragonfly – Female
Eastern Pondhawk Dragonfly – Female
photoartflight 
Beautiful shots Reed!
Thanks Belinda! They are fun to photograph and challenging at the same time!
Wow, awesome photos, Reed! I need to improve on my shots with these, they are not easy!!
Thanks Donna! They are fun to photograph! I like photographing them for the challenge to get the most detail. You live in a perfect spot for Dragonflies. Blackwater NWR is one of my favorite locations for Dragonflies. You seem to get a great variety at different locations there. The first stop is by and along the first lookout platform to the left once you enter. Then along the Wildlife Drive wooded area with the water on each side of the Wildlife Drive. Also the gardens behind the visitor center. I also usually shoot with the lens @ f/8 and manually focus at different focus points and then assemble them in Photoshop to get more depth of field on the subject dragonfly, but still keeping the background somewhat clean and soft focus. Even if you shoot handheld, Photoshop does a good job of aligning them and then blending them. Depending on what I am shooting with, I also use combinations of Teleconverters and extension tubes in different configurations to get the closeness and/or depth of field I am looking for. You can search my blog for Dragonflies and there are a few posts showing some of these setups! Easier to see images than to describe in words. Thanks again!
Thank you, Reed, for the tips and locations!! I’m copying/pasting your comment to print out to take with me next trip to BNWR, which I’m trying to schedule very soon, I’m beginning to have withdrawals not being there. đŸ™‚
Yes, I agree! We love photographing there and even though we moved a little closer, it is still a 3 hour trip. I have been working on a pdf ebook for years on Blackwater NWR. Now that I am semi-retired maybe I will have the time to finish it!