I've been playing around with configurations based on your recent blog post, seems moving the diffusion layers away from the flash bulb makes the biggest difference to the actual diffusion

If your diffusers are bigger now are you still using the Gary Fong puffer plus as the final layer?

There are reports that the animal eye auto focus is able to identify bee eyes..

Nice work, good job on achieving eye focus on a feeding bee!

Great work, looks like it's pretty much the final solution, how is it on bee faces, I think they are the challenge. One photographer I follow where I'm always interested by the diffusion is this Japanese Instagram feed. I expect the reason they can be so good it's that perhaps it's much less than 1x...

Lasers can damage your sensor so be careful when you use them.

Macros of a tiny dagger fly at 2x magnification, feeding on a Cat's Ear flower, this was a very small fly. single frame, hand held, f/11, iso100, 2x https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50069055991_409a0a17a8_b.jpg Dagger Fly by Aves Lux , on Flickr https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50068941678_721...

So am I right in thinking your current lighting is Mt-26EX with 2 heads -> Drilled out diffuser cap as a bracket > layer of 1/4 stop silk > 1 cm gap > layer of 1/4 stop silk > Garry Fong puffer plus - > Subject. That's pretty close :) That is what I also have, basically copying your setup but also ...

In my experience the Topaz denoise in sharpen does a decent job of smoothing the bokeh without affecting subject detail out which makes the subject pop a little more. I only ever use the Topaz sharpen as a final pass before publishing.

Well chosen angle to get both mouth-parts and eyes in focus at f/11

So am I right in thinking your current lighting is Mt-26EX with 2 heads -> Drilled out diffuser cap as a bracket > layer of 1/4 stop silk > 1 cm gap > layer of 1/4 stop silk > Garry Fong puffer plus - > Subject. That is what I also have, basically copying your setup but also extending the flash head...

Hi John, very interesting as always. How much do you think the size of your subject matters here, I notice you shoot smaller subjects at higher magnifications than I tend to, does the relative size of your diffusers make a lot of difference, whats your light like at 1x? Have you considered using som...

Thanks's yeah it's rare the background works so well.

You don't need a macro for newborns they are not that small unless you are looking for extreme closeups of toes or something.

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50020253338_e18e27b518_b.jpg 18-spot Ladybird #2 by Aves Lux , on Flickr I took this a little while ago but had a few from the set and wanted to edit it well. My garden has a pine tree with geraniums underneath and I was lucky that this ladybird fell from the tre...