Dragonfly - large but fast

Last weekend I've been to Sherwood Forest with my family and at a little pond there was this dragonfly. It was quite large (I guess about 8cm / 3in long), but moving really fast, so it was quite difficult to take a picture. At least for me. I used Pentax DA 55-300mm, there are some results (I cropped them a bit):

In flight (@300.0mm; 1/640s; f/5.8; ISO 200), little sharpening applied as well:
[IMG]http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/oo284/misiek_knm/PU/imgp3506.jpg[/IMG]

Flying at me! (@300.0mm; 1/500s; f/5.8; ISO 200):
[IMG]http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/oo284/misiek_knm/PU/imgp3507.jpg[/IMG]

It sat on some straw for a moment so I could use a tripod, but the moment didn't last long (@300.0mm; 1/400s; f/5.8; ISO 200):
[IMG]http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/oo284/misiek_knm/PU/imgp3512.jpg[/IMG]

Speeding again (but I managed to get a bit closer (@150.0mm; 1/640s; f/5.6; ISO 200):
[IMG]http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/oo284/misiek_knm/PU/imgp3522.jpg[/IMG]

C&C welcome

Well done, to catch one in flight is no mean feat!

Usually people (myself included) wait for them to land, but in flight...

,,,WOW!

My pick is #4.

Those southern hawkers are pretty hard to get, I quickly worked out that trying to track them at 400mm was not going to work!

good photos of a tricky subject

Thanks, I'm happy you liked them Fortunately the dragonfly was flying to and fro in a quite small area, so sometimes I got lucky predicting its way. But there was no way to use tripod when it was flying.

I wonder what 4 would look like if you cropped it so that the dragonfly gets more attention?

Okay. And I've never been able to catch one at all - let alone in flight.

nice ones!

i've got a few in flight before, had some nice ones last week with wing blur. They do often follow a pattern, so you can get them at a 'regular' spot.

i had a very trusting one today that let me shove a 50mm with extension tubes in its face.

i'm lucky enough to live near a site that has lots of dragonflies, so you get to know their ways.

Your wish is my command But as Gareth noticed it's less sharp then - even though I applied slight sharpening (Unsharp Mask filter in GIMP, 5.0 / 0.4 / 0)

[IMG]http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/oo284/misiek_knm/PU/imgp3522a.jpg[/IMG]

Much more effective when cropped, even if it no longer looks so sharp.

G

Thanks Michael! I think it's better cropped as well, though I'd given it a bit more space on the left and a little less on the right.