On the screen, this image is magnified around 3 - 3.5 times life-size, assuming that your screen is about 96 pixels per inch.
It's lit with a single flash, which some people find amazing since they're used to seeing a single flash produce harsh, deep shadows.
What's happening to produce shadows that are so soft and full of light is that the flash is close to the subject:, turning it from a small, almost point, light source into something big, beautiful and diffuse.
The flash was diffused, although in this case the diffusion is used purely to make sure that the light from the flash (mounted on top of the camera) didn't miss the subject.
The flash was set to manual, a la strobist, for a number of reasons:
- The subject (the bee) is fairly dark, and is on walking on something fairly light (the catkin).
- The background is a long way behind the bee, compared to the distance from the flash to the bee.
The main reason is that it give me a lot more control. I'm not having to second guess what the camera will do as the subject moves round in the frame, the background changes, and more or less of the catkin is in the shot.
It's one less thing to think about while getting the shot, since bees (and, in fact, most insects) are really uncooperative models: they won't stay still while you adjust settings.
How you work out your original camera settings ... is something I'll talk about in a later post.
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