More experimentation here. My first ever dragonfly! For the flower, I thought I'd try something kind of different. I went with F/32 and then tried to just fill the frame with the flower. Wanted to see how well the DOF would hold at such close distances. I can tell you this; the next time you think your image sensor is clean, just shoot an object this bright at f/32! Needless to say, I had to clone out a few spots :-) I shot these in pretty bright late-morning light, but used a B&W Kaesemann Circular Polarizer to knock the edge off. Both are crops, but the flower only has a slight bit taken off the right side. The Dragonfly is about a 60-70 percent.

http://canonbob.smugmug.com/photos/161004554-L.jpg

http://canonbob.smugmug.com/photos/161004571-L.jpg

oooh..dragonfly is reallyyy nice...focus on eyes...very nice complementing bokeh!

Here's a different take on the Dragonfly. Decided to back the crop out a bit. I also took care of the hotspots on the eyes:

http://canonbob.smugmug.com/photos/161136990-O.jpg

Nice to see that you're giving your 180 a good workout, Bob.

Is the dragonfly handheld? What were the shooting specs for that one? Sorry - too lazy right now to pull up the EXIF :p

EXIF on this dragonfly is f/11, 1/60th, and ISO 400. It was off tripod. However, I was using it as a "monopod". I shot some nice stuff today with it handheld. I think you'll like them.