Dead Dragon

One of our employees found this at work and was really throwing a fit and wanting it removed from the premises. She was scared half to death and the poor dragonfly was not even alive at that point. Naturally I brought it home to practice on. The first shot's DOF has made me want to look into some of the focus stacking software that I have seen so that I could do something like this with a better overall focus. I took the shot with my D3 and 105mm f/2.8. I also used one of my small macro flash units for lighting help.


also a 100% crop

I've always been fascinated by these creatures - they are so wicked looking but so benign - and quick.

As a child, I lived outside the city. I remember playing basketball in the summer and these things were always curious about the ball. I used to play games with them by throwing the ball straight up just to watch them zoom in and hover by it at the apex. That always made them seem "intelligent" to me.

Just to encourage you - it would be good practice and exploration to continue with this magnificent mannequin - by all means, experiment with lighting and with the stacking software, he's not going anywhere. And, oh, post back here!

Edward Bussa said:

I've always been fascinated by these creatures - they are so wicked looking but so benign - and quick.

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Look at the array of the compound eyes! What's amazing is that the switch to turn on the cascade of eye genes is the same from fly to mouse and man! Isn't that humbling!

Asher

Asher Kelman said:

Look at the array of the compound eyes! What's amazing is that the switch to turn on the cascade of eye genes is the same from fly to mouse and man! Isn't that humbling!

Asher

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<Shudder> Humbling? More like frightening. Anyone here has seen the movie the Fly? ;-)

@James: I am curious what kind of results you will get with focus stacking on this. Keep us posted pls.

Cheers,

So how big of a fly swatter did it take to bring it down?

(really cool photo)

Yes he was a beauty even in death. As he sits today however he has lost some of his luster. The nice blue that he showed has now turned black. The eyes have dulled and it truly looks like only a husk now. It's still a very interesting subject however. Very prehistoric looking to me.
I tried a quick focus stack exercise and I am pleased with the results or at least at the promise of things to come. I used the free CombineZM software that I downloaded to combine 8 different images into this one. One thing I learned was that I need to take more images with smaller "slices" of DOF in order to get everything in focus. There is one small section at the end of his tail (I guess it's a tail) that was a bit blurred. That's ok though as it was only a test to get an idea what this software can do. I think it works pretty well and now the rest is left up to me to do right technically. I shot all of the pictures with my Nikon D3, 105mm macro lens, at f/8 1/60th seconds using my R1C1 macro flash system. I shot RAW then converted to Jpeg in ACR before running the CombineZM software.

James Newman said:

Yes he was a beauty even in death. As he sits today however he has lost some of his luster. The nice blue that he showed has now turned black. The eyes have dulled and it truly looks like only a husk now. It's still a very interesting subject however. Very prehistoric looking to me.

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Yes, these insects all lose their impressive color after they die.

@Edward, "I've always been fascinated by these creatures - they are so wicked looking but so benign - and quick.". Well they're fierce hunters, and quick, even in their larval stage.

I tried a quick focus stack exercise and I am pleased with the results or at least at the promise of things to come

I used the free CombineZM software that I downloaded to combine 8 different images into this one. One thing I learned was that I need to take more images with smaller "slices" of DOF in order to get everything in focus.

Click to expand...

Well, you've got yourself a great practice subject!

There is one small section at the end of his tail (I guess it's a tail) that was a bit blurred.

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The (only) great thing about the dead ones is that one is allowed to get all detail.

Make sure you also try Tufuse Pro. It'll allow to combine both exposure and focus stacks. It doesn't resize the various slices yet, but Photoshop CS3 is already pretty good at that.

Bart

Thank you Bart. I might have to give TuFuse a try. I checked that site and it does look like an interesting package. Helicon Focus is another that I want to try as well. CombineZM has been fun to play around with and extremely user friendly and easy. That's important to me.
This is another pose of my captive model. The once clear wings are now starting to show a brownish tint. I don't think he is going to last a lot longer.