Blue Dasher Dragonflies

Dragonfly season will soon be ending but here are a series of Blue Dasher Dragonfly images from a series of different outings. The Featured Image was taken with a Canon 400mm DO lens on a Canon 1D mkIV, @f/8, 1/400 sec.

Blue Dasher Female, Canon 400mm DO lens, f/11, Fill Flash for Detail, Canon 1D mkIV
Blue Dasher Male, 300mm lens, 1.4x Teleconverter, Canon 7D, @ f/11
Blue Dasher Male, Canon 400mm DO lens, f/11, Fill Flash for Detail, Canon 1D mkIV @f/11
Blue Dasher Male, Canon 300mm lens, 1.4x Teleconverter for 420mm, @ f/16, Canon R

Great Blue Skimmer Dragonflies

A series of Great Blue Skimmer Dragonfly images taken with a Canon 300mm lens on a Canon R. Most images shot with a 1.4x Teleconverter @ f/5.6 or f/6.3 to get smoother looking backgrounds. On the image of the Male Great Blue Skimmer I wanted more detail on all the wing damage so I stopped down to f/16 and used a 2X Teleconverter.

Great Blue Skimmer Dragonfly, Female, 300mm lens, 1.4x Teleconverter, f/5.6, Canon R
Great Blue Skimmer Dragonfly, Female, 300mm lens, 1.4x Teleconverter, f/6.3, Canon R
Great Blue Skimmer Dragonfly, Male, 300mm lens, 2x Teleconverter, f/16, Canon R
Great Blue Skimmer Dragonfly, Female, 300mm lens, 1.4x Teleconverter, f/8, Canon R
Great Blue Skimmer Dragonfly, Female, 300mm lens, 1.4x Teleconverter, f/5.6, Canon R

Female Eastern Amberwing Dragonflies In Our Gardens

In a previous post I showed male Eastern Amberwing dragonflies in our gardens. On this post I am showing Female Eastern Amberwing dragonflies. The female Eastern Amberwing dragonflies have dark rusty-brown
wing patches. The males do not have these dark wing patches. All Images here were taken with a Canon 300mm f/4 lens with a 2x Canon Teleconverter on a Canon 1DmkIII.

Eastern Amberwing In Our Yard

Lately we have quite a few Eastern Amberwing Dragonflies in our yard. It is fun to watch them flying around in our gardens. For this post I am showing a series of Eastern Amberwing males. All images were taken with a Canon 300mm lens with a 1.4x teleconverter on a Canon 7D.

Great Egret In Trees

We were coming back home from the grocery store and were going through the gated entrance for our condo community. I noticed this Great Egret in the trees above the small pond by our back entrance. I had my Canon 7D with me so after I entered through the gate I parked and walked back through the gate to take a few images of the Egret. The Featured Image was taken with a 300mm lens with a 1.4X teleconverter. I wanted to get a wider view to show more of the surrounding scene so I shot a 5 image Panorama to get what I wanted for the pano. I first shot top left, then top right, then bottom left, then bottom right. I finished my series by shooting the center just to make sure I had enough images for the pano and everything lines up correctly. I have found that having that center image helps the blending of the image.

Great Egret & Canada Geese Friends, 5 Image Panorama, Canon 7D, 300mm f/4 lens, Canon 7D

Seaside Dragonlet Dragonfly At Blackwater NWR

On our visit to the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge in Maryland I had the chance to photograph a couple of Dragonflies I never photographed before, the Needhams Skimmer (Female) & the Seaside-Dragonlet (male). We only saw a couple of these at the refuge. One by the first Observation Platform along the Wildlife Drive and the other was at the was in the Marsh Edge Trail area.

Seaside Dragonlet Dragonfly (male), 300mm lens, 1.4x Teleconverter, Canon 7D
Seaside Dragonlet Dragonfly (male), 300mm lens 1.4x Teleconverter, Canon 7D

Blackwater Great Blue Heron In Tree

I am still going through images from our visit to the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge which is 12 miles south of Cambridge, Maryland. The images here are of a Great Blue Heron roosting in a tree along the Wildlife Drive. It seemed like it liked posing for me so I had a lot of poses to choose from. Here are a few from the series of images of the Great Blue Heron. On a few I removed a tree branch here or there. was trying to see which I liked better. All images were taken with a Canon 7D with a 300mm lens with a 1.4X Teleconverter.

The Last In The Series & He Is Saying “That’s All So Move On!!”

When You Can Not Get Close To Your Photo Subjects

Many times when I am out walking in a Wildlife Refuge to photograph birds I either cannot get close because they are high up in the trees or there are other things in the way to get close. Or they are flying some what in the distance. So if you are shooting “RAW” camera files such as Canon CR3 Raw files you can use “Enhance” in Photoshop to nicely uprez your images for severe cropping. Or if you want to really Print Large images. Works well for both applications. It also helps to run a noise reducing software after uprezzing. I had made my own Photoshop actions to uprez images but using “Enhance” in Photoshop is easier to use. The Featured Image is severely cropped from my “Enhanced” File. Sometimes I also use Nik Define software to remove some “noise” in the image if I am using a high ISO.

Female Anhinga, Canon f/4 300mm lens, Canon R (Full Image)
Female Anhinga, Canon f/4 300mm lens, Canon R – Photoshop “Enhanced” & cropped in a little
Female Anhinga, Canon f/4 300mm lens, Canon R – Photoshop “Enhanced” & cropped-in more
Female Anhinga, Canon f/4 300mm lens, Canon R – Photoshop “Enhanced” & cropped-in even more
Female Anhinga, Canon f/4 300mm lens, Canon R – Photoshop “Enhanced” & cropped-in closer
Anhinga – Extreme Crop to Show Detail
Adobe Instructions for Enhance from there website

More Sandhill Crane Panoramas From Lake Woodruff NWR

I am still going through Sandhill Crane images that were shot for making panoramas since they were so close to me as I was photographing them. Usually it is a reverse problem where your subjects are too far away as you are photographing them. All images in this post are taken with a 300mm lens on a Canon R. The Featured Image is a 2 horizontal image panorama combined in Photoshop.

2 Horizontal Image Stacked Panorama, 300mm, Canon R
Sandhill Cranes, 5 Horizontal images pano, 300mm, Canon R

Male Anhinga At Lake Woodruff NWR

This is from a previous trip a couple of years ago to Lake Woodruff National Wildlife Refuge in DeLand Florida. We saw quite a few female Anhingas, but we only saw this one male Anhinga preening on a branch and just hanging out there. Usually there are lots of them, but not on this visit.

Anhinga_Male_v2_LW_300mm 076A2559-2

Anhinga_v2_076A2544-2

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