This is a blue crested dragon from Southeast Asia. Most of the images I take during my semi-annual Frog and Reptile workshop is done with a ring flash in which the flash is mounted on a 50mm macro lens. This simulates diffused light because the soft illumination output from the flash envelopes the small subjects just like diffused ambient light does in nature. In this case, however, while the power unit was mounted in the hotshot of the camera, I used the accordion-like cord to take the ring flash itself off the lens so I could hold it at a 3/4 angle to the plane of the lizard. This created sidelighting, and as you can see, the angle of light defined texture in the scales of the reptile's skin as well as the wooden perch. My settings were 1/200, f/32, and 640 ISO.
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