Emergent Dragonfly and Co.

While down by the Sangamon River with Ava and her cousin on Tuesday, I spotted a dragonfly appearing to have been recently emerged. By emerged I mean that it was transforming from larva to adult and was in the process of developing its coloration as well as strength. Despite scouring my identification resources, I am not 100% sure of the species (likely Blue Dasher) but it was among the most docile and approachable dragonflies I've photographed yet.







Prior to the above, I spotted a juvenile softshell turtle that was roughly the size of an Oreo cookie.


I also tried my hand again with the reverse ring only to fail miserably. This was extremely overexposed and corrected as best as I could in Photoshop. When using a reverse ring, you lose all f stop control and are basically shooting wide open at 0.0. Being the noob that I am anymore, I neglected to compensate for the zero f stop by raising my shutter speed so this little "jumper" nestled in the fold on my pant leg came out like garbage. At least you can get an idea of the aberration-free detail you can image via hair and fiber versus the old way I prefer. The only thing I am confident about at this point with reverse ring is that there will be more failure to come.