A meadowhawk

Very nice shot. The BG is a little distracting, but the details on the subject and the perch are perfect.
I am waiting for dragonflies!

D&L

Agree that the BG is a bit distracting, and the subject here might be a bit centered. Otherwise nice sharpness and detail.

I felt that the background elements more or less forced the centered comp. And I think the dragonfly's color and details are strong enough to stand out against the background, but that's certainly a matter of opinion. I do have this other image, shot at f4, that might be preferable to some.

Charles:
I do like the repost better eventhough the forewing is not in focus.

You'll notice, Gary, that even at f8 there isn't enough DOF to get the wings in focus and the background is already starting to be too distracting. At f4 I didn't even get the whole body in focus, which is one reason why I lean toward the first image.

Re-post much more appealing. Nice work!

Hey Charles, good details and interesting BG.

Charles,

I don't think the bg is distracting, but one way to demphasize it would be to go with a vertical crop, that would render more main subject and less background without losing the more focused meadowhawk. Just a suggestion of course. Dragonfly's are so flighty the fact you got several images is special in itself.

Paul

A crop would be problematic in any case, Paul. This was shot in pretty low light and I think the noise would become unacceptable. But I haven't tried so I don't know for sure. Besides, I can't see how a verticle crop wouldn't be too tight on both sides. A square crop would be possible.

Some dragonflies can be less flighty than others. I think this one was looking for a place to spend the night, as one reason for why it was cooperative. Another possibly being the damaged wing.