Crystal Ball

Ken Ramos · Post by **Ken Ramos** » Sun May 06, 2007 6:39 am

EOS 20D
Manual mode/tripod mounted
1/200 sec. @ f/14 ISO 400
Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 macro
Canon 430EX Speedlite @ -1/3
Late afternoon, heavy clouds

It rained for the biggest part of the day, Saturday April 5, but in between showers, I would pop outside to capture a few shots if there were any to take. Of course and quite obvious, this was a good time to photograph water drops in various places, small plants, trees, tree limbs, flowers, your camera lens...

etc.

I like these images, a bit dark but it was a dark and gloomy afternoon which these images should reflect or at least I think.

One thing I am quite disappointed in, is the flash...it is reflected right in the middle of my water drop or "crystal ball." Maybe a bounced diffuser would have been better? Someone tell me...

Erland R.N. · Post by **Erland R.N.** » Sun May 06, 2007 10:59 am

Excellent capture. I did not really notice the flash reflection before you mentioned it.

Erland

Ken Ramos · Post by **Ken Ramos** » Sun May 06, 2007 12:07 pm

Thanks Erland

Had I bounced the flash, I think I could have avoided that but maybe had ended up suffering some loss in of depth of field, I really don't know.

Bruce Williams · Post by **Bruce Williams** » Sun May 06, 2007 1:48 pm

Ken - Well done for spotting and capitalising on the opportunity of creating something a little different.

I agree with Erland that the flash highlight is not really that "in-your-face" noticeable until it's pointed out. Although, on reflection (sorry couldn't resist it

) if it were my own pics, I would probably would have noticed it while post-processing in CS2 and may well have cloned it out (should be very easy to do).

Bruce

Ken Ramos · Post by **Ken Ramos** » Sun May 06, 2007 2:16 pm

I thought of cloning and that is a good idea and probably would suffice but there is a lot of detail in there that is exacting, so I just decided to let it be. Thanks Bruce

beetleman · Post by **beetleman** » Sun May 06, 2007 4:35 pm

Excellent pictures Ken. You probably should not have said anything about the flash

I love the way the flower is magnified in the drop.

Ken Ramos · Post by **Ken Ramos** » Sun May 06, 2007 4:43 pm

Doug commented:

I love the way the flower is magnified in the drop.

There in is where the detail lies, in which I was worried about cloning out the flash but maybe I should have not mentioned it.

Thanks Doug

Moebius · Post by **Moebius** » Mon May 07, 2007 9:00 am

Ken,

Well, I was enjoying the pic until you mentioned the reflection...now I can't get past the reflection and the whole pic is ruined for me....just kidding. I agree that cloning may be worth a try.

Nice idea..haven't done anything with water drops yet.

Ken

Ken Ramos · Post by **Ken Ramos** » Mon May 07, 2007 9:19 am

You know when I first looked at the image after download, I did not notice it right off. It was not until after I had cropped and resized and all the other usual stuff that I noticed it. However they say that, "you yourself are your worst critic," and therefore I guess one keys in on the little things more themselves. Thanks Ken

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Mon May 07, 2007 9:54 am

These are really beautiful images.

About the flash reflection, I dunno. It's tempting to say "oh, yeah, should have used a diffuser", but when you actually do that, sometimes you just end up with a BIG annoying reflection instead of a small one. Crossed polarizers would have killed the annoying reflection, but at the cost of also killing all those unnoticed pleasant little reflections that add sparkle around the ends of the petals and sepals. A good case could be made for making the flash as small as possible -- maybe even stick a shield in front of it, with just a small hole in it -- to make it easier to clone out the few annoying reflections while still getting the benefit from all the others.

As it is, I'd give cloning a shot anyway. Those are such nice abstract streaky patterns between the petals, you could plug in anything that looks vaguely similar and nobody would ever notice! Pull in a pattern from the other side of the drop, rotate to match the angle, mask it in -- shoot, not even a forensic photoanalyst would catch you at it!

--Rik

Ken Ramos · Post by **Ken Ramos** » Mon May 07, 2007 10:07 am

Rik wrote:

Pull in a pattern from the other side of the drop, rotate to match the angle, mask it in -- shoot, not even a forensic photoanalyst would catch you at it!

Yeah but my momma would!

I may just put the original back in processing and give it a try later on. Thanks Rik