Crystal Ball Photography
By Joshua Blankman
30 Mar 2008
Today I had a sudden urge to experiment... I've had a crystal ball for several years now and I have always admired the way things look through it. The first thing I have to note is that some scratches can give a crystal ball character, but dust and fingerprints can create unwanted lines and smudges. Personally, I always use latex gloves when handling the crystal. The first thing I tried was to use the crystal ball as a mock fisheye lens on top of pictures I've already taken.
The next paragraph is the process I went by to accomplish the bird's eye view pictures.
I printed out pictures approximately 4x4 inches, which worked perfectly for my crystal ball which has a diameter of about 4 inches. I cut out the pictures and placed them over a white piece of paper so I wouldn't hit any unwanted colours around the edge. The next thing I did was figure out how I was going to place my camera over the picture. I have a gorillapod, which was perfect for my smaller Fujifilm FinePix A825, but would not allow adequate space for my Olympus Evolt E-410. For the purpose of experimentation I used my smaller camera to do the overhead. I encountered very few problems, but my main problem seemed to be lighting. With too much light and from certain angles any light, one can clearly see reflections upon the crystal. Focus is easy when up close like this, but may give you a bit of trouble for wider shots. The best advice for lighting and the best effect for any object shot through a crystal ball would be to experiment with as many angles as you can.
After playing around with an overhead view, I wanted to get the same view that I get when I look at it straight on. I placed the camera as low as I could (most easily done with a gorillapod or tabletop tripod) and shot the surroundings. This is perfect for wide fisheye/lensbaby type effects, and at some point I'll experiment with this outdoors as I feel this fits perfectly for outdoor photography. The only advice I would give would be to hold the crystal ball and move around to see what things look like and what would be best to capture through this unique view.
The last thing that has to be done for this type of photography is done in post production. Through a crystal ball, everything you look at is upside-down. Although some people may enjoy this as part of the effect I prefer the images to be right side up. Simply turn the image 180 degrees in Photoshop and there you have the one of a kind picture you get while looking through a crystal ball.
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