Love Our Planet
I have been meaning to shoot this image for years. A re-exploration of the concept of the Earth in a water droplet. I had first explored the idea in 2012, but I was sparked by Earth Day last week to give it another look. The first image from years ago was this one: www.flickr.com/photos/donkom/14082767324/
This image was created with a Public Domain map of the Earth from the NASA archives that you can download and print for yourself here: visibleearth.nasa.gov/images/57735/the-blue-marble-land-s... - if you want to try this yourself, it’s best to use a matte paper stock so that you don’t get glare off the print from the light.
The message here should be plain to see. The love of our planet, dangling dangerously from an ever-fraying thread. In this example, the droplet is nearly ready to drop from the petal, and did exactly that shortly after the photo was taken.
The petals, from a Gerbera daisy, were difficult. This type of shape isn’t formed easily, and in fact was only made possible because of the droplet weighing one of the petals down. The entire setup took over an hour to create, even though I have done similar images before. Part of this is luck, part of this is perseverance.
Because so much effort was being expended on such a small and fragile subject, this is one of the rare instances where I used a focusing rail for a water droplet image. It wasn’t shot with a macro lens, but rather the excellent Lumix 24-105mm F/4 lens with a set of automatic bellows from NOVOFLEX. A really cool tool, and one I’ll be using more of. It’s a focus stack of more than 20 frames to ensure full focus from front to back.
The lighting is done with an LED flashlight on a gooseneck arm. Aimed mostly at the background (the map), a single undiffused light is the tool for many water droplet images.
Shot with a Lumix S1R with the intent to crop in a little to get the right framing, having more than double the resolution of my first “version” of this image was very helpful. This is a technique I have been using more frequently – getting a little farther away from the subject, or utilizing the “high resolution mode” when available, and cropping in. The closer you get, the shallower your depth of field becomes. The farther away you are, the more this problem is alleviated – and cropping can help you recover the framing of the subject.
For anyone curious, my upcoming book talks about all of these techniques – and it’s in production right now! Off the press, and awaiting binding. It should be shipping out starting on May 10th. :) If you haven’t pre-ordered a copy, that can be done here: skycrystals.ca/product/pre-order-macro-photography-the-un... (and the eBook is currently available for download immediately: skycrystals.ca/product/pre-order-ebook-edition-macro-phot... )
Love Our Planet
I have been meaning to shoot this image for years. A re-exploration of the concept of the Earth in a water droplet. I had first explored the idea in 2012, but I was sparked by Earth Day last week to give it another look. The first image from years ago was this one: www.flickr.com/photos/donkom/14082767324/
This image was created with a Public Domain map of the Earth from the NASA archives that you can download and print for yourself here: visibleearth.nasa.gov/images/57735/the-blue-marble-land-s... - if you want to try this yourself, it’s best to use a matte paper stock so that you don’t get glare off the print from the light.
The message here should be plain to see. The love of our planet, dangling dangerously from an ever-fraying thread. In this example, the droplet is nearly ready to drop from the petal, and did exactly that shortly after the photo was taken.
The petals, from a Gerbera daisy, were difficult. This type of shape isn’t formed easily, and in fact was only made possible because of the droplet weighing one of the petals down. The entire setup took over an hour to create, even though I have done similar images before. Part of this is luck, part of this is perseverance.
Because so much effort was being expended on such a small and fragile subject, this is one of the rare instances where I used a focusing rail for a water droplet image. It wasn’t shot with a macro lens, but rather the excellent Lumix 24-105mm F/4 lens with a set of automatic bellows from NOVOFLEX. A really cool tool, and one I’ll be using more of. It’s a focus stack of more than 20 frames to ensure full focus from front to back.
The lighting is done with an LED flashlight on a gooseneck arm. Aimed mostly at the background (the map), a single undiffused light is the tool for many water droplet images.
Shot with a Lumix S1R with the intent to crop in a little to get the right framing, having more than double the resolution of my first “version” of this image was very helpful. This is a technique I have been using more frequently – getting a little farther away from the subject, or utilizing the “high resolution mode” when available, and cropping in. The closer you get, the shallower your depth of field becomes. The farther away you are, the more this problem is alleviated – and cropping can help you recover the framing of the subject.
For anyone curious, my upcoming book talks about all of these techniques – and it’s in production right now! Off the press, and awaiting binding. It should be shipping out starting on May 10th. :) If you haven’t pre-ordered a copy, that can be done here: skycrystals.ca/product/pre-order-macro-photography-the-un... (and the eBook is currently available for download immediately: skycrystals.ca/product/pre-order-ebook-edition-macro-phot... )