My first damselfly of the year

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.

HOSTED PHOTO
please log in to view hosted photos in full size.

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

Nice legs

Lovely capture
Brian V.

Thanks guys, it's appreciated.

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

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?

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.

Very nice. Good detail.