more flashes

Comments and questions about the APOD on the main view screen.
wombat

more flashes

Post by wombat » Fri Dec 10, 2004 9:54 am

One quick thought before leaving. The comment about the "eyes and glasses" in the bat images prompted this one.

All of the bug theorists so far seem to be fixating on the bug going AWAY from the camera, with the bright spot being something like pollen on the abdomen. But there were some posts earlier that suggested that with this model camera, the flash may have fired at the beginning of the exposure. Is that theory still current?

If so, then the bug is travelling TOWARDS the camera. The bright yellow spot could then well be the reflection of the flash on the insect's compound eyes, which may well be huge in proportion to the rest of the body parts. From other images I've seen of flash photos of insect heads, it seems reasonable that you might get an almost specular reflection this way, which would thus be quite bright in relation to the rest of the bug.

The only problem I see with this is that you would then expect the reflection to be more white than yellow. Maybe there has been some kind of colour compensation happening? This seems reasonable given the huge amount of "blue" in the overall picture. Maybe there is a clue to this somewhere in the EXIF info; my skills at interpreting that are zero.