Over the last 6 months I have been experimenting with my Christmas present from my wife – a lensball.
If you are not familiar with them – they are crystal balls which come in various sizes which you can put in front of your camera and use a little bit like a wide angle lens. However, because you can play with focus and perspective of the ball within the image you can achieve some interesting results, a sample of mine you can see here.
They are available on Amazon and can vary in price from around £10 to over £50 – normally depending on the size and quality of the glass. If you want to try one mine is a 60mm glass ball from Lensball, see what size and price works for you.
Key lessons for me have been:
Settings – Focus wise – getting the focus bang on for the image in the lensball is a must, otherwise you get a fuzzy mess across the frame. I tend to stick with an aperture of between f8 and f11, shutter speed of 1/100 to 1/200 of a sec and balance the ISO depending on light levels. I find this combination provides the right depth of field and avoids camera shake.
Gear – it may sound strange but a medium to long lens works best. I use my 70-300mm. There is something about getting a bit of distance between you and the ball which allows the right framing but also gives a good depth of field. The other things I have put in the bag are a microfibre cleaning cloth, trust me any greasy finger prints are shown up on the ball so best to clean it before use, and a plastic bottle top. What!? I hear you ask. Well these are heavy glass balls … which roll easily – the bottle top means you can rest the ball simply on most surfaces safe in the knowledge it will stay where you put it. Alternatively use a shorter lens and hand hold the ball as I did in several my images.
Composition – The image in the lensball ends up being an inverted wide angle scene so the key thing to think about is how the final picture is going to be viewed. If it will be online as a thumbnail or Instagram post the ball needs to pretty much fill the frame, otherwise the image in the ball is lost. If it is being viewed at a larger scale you have more scope to include more of the rest of the scene. For everything else the usual rules apply: have the ball on a third/power point, centralise the ball in the frame with the inverted image being a “reflection” to rest of the scene, etc – and of course the golden rule … break the rules and try something completely different!
Contrast – I have found that high contrast images work the best. This could be either be a colourful sunset with silhouetted trees, a blue sky with a beach or snowscape or even a night scene with lights/buildings - the contrast in these scenes seem to bring out the details and give a clarity to the image in the ball.
There are some things to watch out for though:
The ball will roll – so make sure it is safe when you put it down
In bright sunlight the ball acts as a big magnifying glass – so watch out for it starting burning a hole or set fire to whatever it is sat on!
My family are keeping me on my toes. I’ve just had my birthday and got a prism – time to work out how I can integrate that into my photography!
I recommend you do the same ... never stop learning and try something different today!