Yaay for the new lens!!
Dragonfly
Kendall Lake
Cuyahoga Valley National Park, Ohio
A hot summer afternoon, some patience, and a new camera lens produced my favorite photo ever.
I was inspired to pop for the 50-200 mm zoom for the Nikon D-40 by jocosa after her recent post of a hummingbird
(which seems to have disappeared from LJ.)
I was trying to catch one in flight around a marshy area but they're very fast, too fast for focusing on them, and they don't land much.
Suddenly this guy landed about 4 feet in front of me and seemed to stare right at me. He sat there for probably nearly a minute
(hey guess what?! I can hold my breath for nearly a minute!!),
and I was able to fire off dozens of shots, first trying autofocus, which got confused, and then manual focus.
We have about 40 species of dragonflies here in Ohio and I haven't narrowed down which this one is yet.