Macro self portrait in the ball of a ball-point pen

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By Sean Michael Ragan
Posted 2010/08/02 @ 1:25 pm
Category Art & Design, Photography & Video

Russian photographer Alexey Arkhipov took this awesome photo using a specially-fitted Canon PowerShot S1 IS. The page is in Russian, but the camera-savvy may be able to decipher the lens arrangement just from the photos of the set-up.

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3 Responses to Macro self portrait in the ball of a ball-point pen

amacneil.myopenid.com on August 2nd, 2010 at 3:12 pm said:

Here’s what she is using for her lens set-up.

The long ring is an adapter to allow the use of standard screw-in filters on her camera. The series of three short rings is a step-up/down ring on either side of a male-male adapter ring which allows a lens to be mounted backwards on the front of another lens. Finally, she has a 50mm lens mounted backwards.

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capt.tagon on August 2nd, 2010 at 5:57 pm said:

when taking product shots. It’s amazing what is reflective, you go through an elaborate shoot and at the end, there’s your face displayed for all to see, causing major distraction from the object you’re trying to sell. In the end you decide that shooting through a hole in a neutral gray screen is your friend.

My best photographing the photographer was shots I took of this awesome turboprop aircraft called Raven II. It was semi-intentional as I wanted to show how beautifully polished the stainless steel exhaust stack was. It also had this pretty display of temper colors. And in the reflection is me shooting the aircraft shooting me…

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Risuun on August 5th, 2010 at 12:18 pm said:

Great shot! Love the idea! However, I can say that this is two photos photoshopped together. Why? At best, that close of a macro will yield such a shallow depth of field (I’d say a few millimeters at best) that even stopped down to f/32 you could not get both in focus. You can try it at home by shooting a shot of yourself through a mirror while leaving the mirror-frame in shot. You’ll see that if you focus ‘through’ the mirror on yourself, the frame is out of focus. I’ve used the effects of reflection to my advantage when I needed more ‘room’ for a self-portrait: if you’re 2 ft. from the mirror, then the other you is effectively 4ft. away from the camera.

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