Back to album

Metallic Mating Wheel - _TNY_3863S2

I spotted this male (blue) and female (orange) beautiful demoiselle (Calopteryx virgo) on a log next to the Stensjöbäcken creek in Tyresta National Park.

 

They were quite a bit away, but fortunately for me I had the Sigma 180 mm macor w/ the 2x teleconverter on the camera so I got close anyway.

 

Light from the flash had no way of lighting them up that far away though so I had to settle for a smaller aperture than I would have liked to use to get both of them in focus at the same time.

 

I tried compensating for this by shooting several one with each one in focus with the intent to focus stack them, but when I tried for a third shot in between to tie them together they took off.

 

There was movement between the shots so I couldn't feed the shot into a stacking software so this is two exposures blended together manually in Photoshop.

 

I kind of missed the third shot, but it still came out pretty nice I think. The blue wing looks a little wonky out of focus in the middle - is it showing too much for you?

929 views
24 faves
21 comments
Uploaded on August 10, 2023
Taken on June 20, 2023