Into the Eyes of a Dragon.

On Saturday I took another visit to Ramsdown, near Hurn in Bournemouth.  The day was not too warm and there was a fair breeze blowing so there was a lack of butterflies when compared to my last visit to Ramsdown.   I think this was because the temperature was below what they like, in addition there weren’t as many basking dragonflies.   However I did come across a couple of hanging yellow dragonflies..  These were Cordulegaster boltonii – Golden-ringed Dragonfly, which I had identified on UK Dragonflies.com

I was also trying out a cross-polarization flash technique that I’d read about on NatureScapes.net.  I’ll detail more about my experiences with it once I’ve tried it out a bit more.

The last shot below taken on my Canon 100mm lens shows the full length of the dragonfly, which I took first in case it flew off.  The first few are taken on my Canon MPE-65mm lens at between 1 and 2x magnification of the dragons eyes.  All shots used the flash cross-polarization technique.

The eyes of the dragonfly, taken on MPE-65mm,  is the highest magnification shot of the series.  I very slightly cropped the LHS by about 10 pixels to improve the composition. On reflection I think it could do with a touch more to centralize the dragonfly.  Normally I would off centre a subject, but on this occasion I think it merits being plumb centre.

Landscape shot of the dragonfly’s head taken on MPE-65mm.

Portrait shot of the Dragonfly’s head.

This shot shows a bit more of the dragonfly’s body.

The whole of the dragonfly taken on the 100mm.

Map of Location