Again, sunset looked promising, so to the neighborhood pond I went. Again, sunset didn’t live up to its promise, so I chased a few other pics while there.
Notably, the bats were active, and while I had only the 18-135, I got a couple of frames that worked. You get to decide which crop works best for this one, though – vertical?
Or, horizontal?
I was just winging it (heh!), not expecting to get too much with the shorter reach of the lens, the velocity of the subject, and the fading light, but I was pleased to pull a little wing detail out of a few frames. This is nearly full-resolution:
Don’t ask me for the species, because I could see no color any better than this, plus I was unable to even judge size/distance. I did see a brief dogfight while there, two bats winding around so close together they overlapped in multiple frames, but what that was all about I can’t say, because I’m a discreet neighbor.
Plus, I chased a couple of other compositions while I ensured that the sky would get no less boring.
Getting a sharp frame of this took some playing around, because the light was disappearing, but by intentionally underexposing I was able to get this. What I like about it is, the leaf is totally isolated on the water – the thick ‘stem’ is simply a reflection of a branch, but it’s easy to escape notice.
And finally,
As the color was fading from the clouds, I had to crouch and move around a bit to put it behind the dragonfly, but at least it’s more than acceptably sharp. For ten minutes of playing around all told, it works for me.