Halloween Pennant Dragonfly

We went to Plainsboro Preserve to look for Dragonflies, or whatever else we could find. The New Jersey Audubon Society manages the Preserve on behalf of Plainsboro and Middlesex County. The Preserve is over 1,000 acres of undistrubed open space with nature trails and 50 acre McCormack Lake. It was supposed to start to rain so I decided to travel light and just took a m43 Camera with a 14-140mm lens (Full Frame DSLR FOV equivalent ~28-280mm). There were lots of dragonfly’s along the paths and off to the sides but were mostly buzzing around so with the m43 camera it was tough to get shots of them. When they did land it was only for a few seconds. We are going back when it is not going to rain and have more time to explore for Dragonflies. It is interesting how different places, but still close in proximity attract different types of dragonflies. I guess it depends on water conditions. They say Skimmers are attracted to still waters or slow streams.

 

 

 

Halloween Pennant

The Halloween Pennant is one of my favorite dragonflies so I like it when I find one (or more) to photograph. At my old home I had my own pond which was my combination macro & dragonfly studio along with several favorite National Wildlife Refuges with different varieties of dragonflies. So I am still exploring the local parks near my new condo for good dragonfly locations. I had the week off but the heat index was 110 degrees plus & minus all week so it was tough to get out to look for subjects to photograph. I did manage to get quite a variety earlier in the week and I am going through them.

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Halloween Pennant Covered with Dew

We went to Davidsons Mill Pond Park to look for dragonflies and what ever else we could find. I have looked for dragonflies early in the morning covered with dew for years, but have not found any so far. To our surprise we found one on this morning. Unfortunately it was very windy plus in the shade. It was not warm enough for the Halloween Pennant to fly, so we had a great photo subject that was not going anywhere for a while. Being in the shade the light was terrible and with the wind it was blowing back and forth. I had to raise the ISO to 2000 and still only had a shutter speed of 1/125th sec @ f/8 with a 150mm Sigma macro. Hand holding the camera, I tried shooting quite a few series of different focus points to combine later in a stacked photoshop file with sharpest ones to combine for one sharp image. I shot quite a few bursts as it was blowing around. Being late in the season this dragonfly showed a lot of wear, damaged wings, pieces missing, etc. The one wing was even bent at an odd angle so I left that section with a little softer focus. With the way the wind was blowing I was surprised I got as much as I did. Not perfect but it was still fun to try.
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