
Out on an early walk this morning, with cloud and mist in the sky, this bumble bee was playing alongside me. Because of the soft light the contrasting yellow and purple show up clearly. In harsh bright light the colour would be more likely to burn out: literally too much light bounces off the camera’s sensor and the colour looks faded and washed out on the photograph. In low light conditions, such as this morning, however, the challenge is to get the fast moving insect in sharp focus. I resolved that problem by pushing up the ISO to 1600. It remains a compromise, though, as higher ISO settings can introduce too much colour noise and ruin the photograph in that way.