Wrong lens do you miss the event?

Yet another Banded Dragonfly but with another slant whilst concentrating on Dragonflies with the Macro outfit I caught site of a Dragonfly laying eggs. Now do you go for it or being fully aware your set up is wrong do you let it go? Lighting and reflection didn't help but that said I was very pleased with the event captured.

I took about ten shots and the details are there albeit a heavy crop was required and I lost quality.

Critique, Comments Advice most welcome.

Thanks for looking.

Woops I left off the details.

ISO400 180mm handheld 1/4000sec f/6.3

Canon 1D3 Canon 180mm

There is obviously a dragonfly skipping across the water Barry, but on my work set up, the image is too dark to really say much else.

Graham thanks I've been messing around with the PC settings back to the drawing board me thinks.

Hi Barry,

I adjusted your image slightly by using some shadow/highlights in Photoshop and cropped it in pano and cloned out some of that distractin OOF foreground. I could have done way more with the original RAW file though.

Think this would be the way to go for this image.

greetings,

Jeroen Stel

p.s: This not a Banded Darter (see the missing wing pattern), but it is a Scarce Chaser.

Hello Barry.

I would have another go with the RAW file and I think Jerons crop idea works well.

Lots of potential here Barry, see Jeroens version

Agree with Guy on this Barry, give the RAW file another go, because as Jeroen's proved, theres a good image to be had.

Andy...

Agree with the above pano and a rework is the way to go for me, look forward to a repost

Polish up those PS skills. Looking forward to seeing what can be achieved.

Looking forward to seeing another version of this. I really like the water droplets being lifted up...not something Ive seen before.

Ian

Thanks Jeroen and everyone else that's just what I was looking for my PS skills are far from polished that's why I tend to leave it as shot. It's confidence thing.