My first damselfly of the year

[eccles]

This is macro on the cheap! I shot this damselfly today using a 20 year old 70-210 tank of a lens that I got cheap on ebay. It had a sticky diaphragm that I fixed. I put a Canon 500D +2 dioptre close up lens on the front of it. For modest magnification levels such as butterflies it works very well.
I have a Sigma 105 macro but didn't carry it today. I was travelling light because I didn't know what I was going to find, birds or insects, and I was also carrying an umbrella because of frequent showers.
This is cropped to about 1400 pixels on the long end then resized to 800 pixels for web display.
I used Raw Therapee to convert the raw file, which is freeware, and IMO better than Photoshop Raw.
The damselfly is a young male large red. C&C appreciated.

[johnkermit1]

nice shot. good setup also, thanks for sharing.!

[tombell]

Nice legs

[LordV]

Lovely capture :)
Brian V.

[eccles]

Thanks guys, it's appreciated. :)

[LindaB]

Well done Mike, its a fabulous shot. Certainly shows how talented you are using equipment like that (not that I know anything about that equipment but I can imagine how difficult it must be).

I am also envious that you have spotted a first damsel - I havent had the pleasure yet.

Linda

[DaveBinks]

Nice shot - interesting to see that you've used raw therapee - I've just downloaded it to try out as well - how do you find it?

[eccles]

Thanks again Linda & Dave.
@Linda, I find using a close up lens to be no more difficult than my macro lens, maybe even a bit easier as the extra distance means less risk of spooking the subject. And it's easy to stick in the bag *just in case*. :)
@Dave, Raw Therapee seems to be easy enough to use, and I like the results it gives. I got some decent images out of it without having to read a tiresome online manual. Some screen updates like chromatic aberration correction are horrendously slow on my slightly aging XP3200 PC though.

[skylab]

Very nice. Good detail.