The "Dragonhunter" kills its prey

[jonny_redhorse]

just "had" to post this big guy! ...one of the biggest of the dragonflies and I haven't seen one of these for a couple years ...kinda rare ....wing span is over 4" and the body over 3"...they supposedly are immune to wasp venom and can even eat monarch butterflies....(usually nothing can eat monarch butterflies(toxicity thing) but this guy can)....I watched this one chasing various butterflies (apparently wasn't that hungary)..usually rests on rocks near streams and rivers.....just a little trivia jonny

[Steve Foss]

Nice shot, Jonny. I, too, was out shooting dragonflies today, and got some shots (bad background and light, couldn't choose it) of a dragonfly biting the head off a smaller dragonfly. They plopped to the ground right in front of me, all tangled up in death throes. I'm downloading now and will have to sort through about 3 Gb of shots before processing, but it's quite possible the killer I shot is a dragonhunter like this one. I'll post an image in behind you when I can get to it.

[Steve Foss]

I had about 10 seconds to fire off all the shots I could get after the dragonflies plopped down to the ground. No time to put on a macro, and it all happened so fast, which is why the closeup isn't as sharp as it should be.

I didn't bother pulling full exif data. It was the Canon 20D, 100-400L IS at 400mm, at iso400 set to Av mode (aperature priority) and f8, handheld.

They crashed to the ground in front of me, a dragonhunter and its victim, a lake darner

A closeup of the dragonhunter beginning its decapitation. Is that panic in the darner's eyes?

The nearly headless lake darner dies in the sun

[jonny_redhorse]

great images Steve!...darners get pretty big also but that dragonhunter took him out ....no problem.....lol!...just love these little nature"happenings"...most people don't even realize these little life and death situations even happen... nature at it's finest..... jonny

[Tom Wilson]

Nice shots guys.

Steve,

What are you (and a couple others) doing when you save your images that removes all of the exif info.

[Steve Foss]

Tom, I convert from camera RAW to Photoshop CS tiff, saving the image in that form. Then I convert dpi to 96 and size to about 600 to 650 pixels across for horizontals and 400 to 450 pixels across for verticals. Then I use Photoshop CS's "save for Web" feature, which forces the images to use as little memory as possible. They tend to look really nice if, when using that feature, they're saved at 75 percent. I'm not sure which part of this process erases the exif, but I'd bet it's one of the things that may happen with "save for Web," in order to save space. I always use this feature when posting on online forums because it's easier on bandwidth (and the forum owners, who have to pay for bandwidth, REALLY like small files), and a lot of forums have instituted strict file size rules I can't comply with unless using this feature.

I didn't bother posting my exif on this because it seemed the story was more important than the details, and I still had several hundred images from the day's shooting to sort through after posting these quickies. If it matters to you, I can easily go back and find that data. I shot RAW, which makes it quite easy.

[Steve Foss]

Canon 20D, 100-400L IS at 400mm, iso400, 1/500 at f8 on aperature priority mode, handheld.

[Dbl]

Steve, By default, CS2 strips the EXIF when you use "save for web", but if you use "Save As", the EXIF remains. I usually "save" as a jpeg retaining EXIF data. I then use IrfanView to batch process to 800 X 600 or lower and upload to the web. Retains EXIF for those that care. Since I upload a couple of hundred shots per outing I find this method quick and fast. I just uploaded 250 baseball shots with conversion in no time at all. Just what works for me.

Oh and by the way nice photo series.

[Steve Foss]

Thanks man. Good info. I figured it was the "save for Web" feature. But uploading 250 images to the Web at a time? Yikes! Better you than me.

[Dbl]

Quote:

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Thanks man. Good info. I figured it was the "save for Web" feature. But uploading 250 images to the Web at a time? Yikes! Better you than me.

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Thats the nice thing about my service, I start the upload and walk away for about 20 mins or just start working on the next batch and it is done.

[buzzsaw]

Photoshop Elements 4.0 also strips the exif when you use the "save for web" feature.... as I do.