Smiley Dragon is happy, and another portrait

[IanClark]

Damn the bright sunlight. I would have tried to have shaded this little one a touch but they were rather skittish and were not staying put for long. As you can see the sunlight was to the left of the dragon.

 

[NSNO]

Two crackers but that first one is brilliant - made me laugh

 

[IanClark]

hehe cheers Rob, indeed. I wonder if we were to take a photo of a dragon with one of those cameras that has smile recognition, would it auto-take the shot

 

[GardenersHelper]

LOL for #1. I was going to ask if they had mouths, as I don't seem to have seen one yet. Well, I have now!

That one is a bit special I think.

Damn the bright sunlight.

Well, on the glass half full front, the sunlight did balance the flash and raise the background.

 

[Chump]

Nice

 

[IanClark]

LOL, well I'm glad it does have a mouth otherwise there'd be none to photograph . Does look special though. haha.

Cheers

 

[Just Dave]

Fab Ian

first face made me giggle

 

[IanClark]

Cheers

 

[NWgaz]

good shots ian

 

[IanClark]

Thanks Gary

 

[blackwolf]

These are brilliant as are your others can i ask if you use anything other than your sigma 105 how do you get so closeup

 

[IanClark]

Thanks Blackwolf.

Yes, for most shots I'm coupling the 105 with an extension tube. Sometimes a 12mm, sometimes the 20mm. On occasion I'll add more than one, maybe all 3. For these shots, I had a single 20mm on.

As for getting really close up, firstly, the dragonfly's head isn't as small as you might think so at 1:1, it can be filling the frame nicely. As I'm using the 20mm tube, it permits me to pull back a bit on the extra magnification having the ring on gives me, kinda back to where 1:1 is roughly but so I can shoot a little further away. Gives me more DoF, more chance of a sharper result.

Then, with subtle cropping using the resample option and decent sharpening and noise reduction, I can get the results above. It's just a shame the sunlight was so bright coming from my right.