An obliging Dragonfly (56k warning)

This dragonfly (common darter) allowed me to do a complete photo-session on it . The shots are natural light apart from the headshot.
Brian V.

Cross-eye stereogram

Hiya Brian,
Like I've said before & countless others also, these are totally what words can do justice to such great photography, I think the correct term these days is ' wicked '
#4 is something else how the hell did you get it to pose like that??? I'm sure we'd all like to know.
Cheers for now
Mark

@Bandit, Common darter males will keep returning to the same spot if disturbed, particularly if it's found a high spot overlooking its territory. So if you're patient you can put a finger near where they perch, and when they fly off they'll go back to the same point which is where your finger is. Large red damselfly males will often do this too.

I agree they're super pics. I especially like the head close-up which shows off those huge compound eyes and prehensile jaws.

@Brian, I haven't seen any darters around my favourite dragonfly patches yet. Are these from this year?

Magnificent shots Brian. I can see heaps of us now going out holding our fingers out hoping for a dragonfly landing.

bandit 1 wrote:
Hiya Brian,
Like I've said before & countless others also, these are totally what words can do justice to such great photography, I think the correct term these days is ' wicked '
#4 is something else how the hell did you get it to pose like that??? I'm sure we'd all like to know.
Cheers for now
Mark

Thanks Mark
The perching on finger bit was quite funny- my wife actually took some interest in the dragonfly and asked why it was sitting on the end of the cane. I explained they tend to like a high perch with good view and once they have found one will return to it. I tried to demonstrate this by poking my finger in it's face to scare it off but instead of that it just stepped onto my finger
Brian V.

Thanks Eccles,
Yes they were shot the other day. Haven't seen nearly as many as last year though yet. Think my tally is 2 females and this is the first male. Oddly last year the females were very tame but the males were not- could hardly get a shot of them.
Brian V.

Thanks Greg
As explained above I actually put my finger out to scare it off the perch but instead of that it stepped onto it
Brian V.

Its difficult to imagine getting better shots than these , fantastic series ...

Great work with a most willing subject. Excellent natural light shots, very impressive.

Great shots Brian. Would be interested in seeing the EXIF information for these. Were they taken using a tripod? Or were they handheld? I'm assuming all but the headshot were taken with the Sigma?

Seeing these has given me the urge to visit Thursley (one of the best dragonfly places in the UK) this weekend. Hopefully all the storms will have passed by then!

Thanks
Yes all but the headshot were with the sigma 105mm no tubes on the 300D in natural light (bright sunny day). Was shooting in TV mode 1/200th ISO400 with the aperture coming out around F10 apart from the finger shot which I think went to about F22 (hence the DOF). The were handheld using my normal bean pole to help stabilise the camera (or me) a bit.
Brian V.

awesome shots....love the super closeup on its head...
1st shot has got a nice bg...

cheers.....

Are those squished bugs on his windscreen??

I am very very jealous right now.

I agree with everyone, there are awesome!!! I can't belive it landed on your finger

Thanks
Brian V.