I have always been fascinated with light shining through objects and with nature refracted in water drops. So I was all-in when I discovered that glass balls were available specifically for photographers who like to play with the art of refraction. I bought a Besnfoto 80 mm Crystal Ball Photography K9 Clear Lens Ball Sphere, and a set of Tiesome 12-piece Acrylic Sphere Display Stands. The glass ball came with a padded case and a small black stand with a suction cup to hold the ball. I liked the idea that the suction cup could be removed and screwed onto a standard ¼” thread speedlight stand when I wanted the ball higher.
I purchased the much smaller acrylic stands for situations when I wanted to position the ball very low and inconspicuous—allowing me to easily cover the base with snow or moss, or edit it out entirely if I desired. The ball also comes with a small cleaning cloth, but I carry a much larger one in my case, as it makes the ball easier to handle. It’s important to keep the ball clean.
I’ve only had my glass ball for a short time and have found it to be a lot of fun. It’s a great tool for stretching the imagination and for honing one’s composition skills, in addition to adding interesting abstracts to my portfolio.
The photography itself can be accomplished with your phone or whatever camera lens you have. So far, I’ve been using my 28 mm lens, but I will also likely use a zoom lens in the future. The idea is to choose something interesting to be refracted in the ball (which will be very sharp), while allowing the actual subject in the background to be blurred. Lighted buildings, bridges, and landscapes are compelling subjects, as are flower and nature close-ups.
For my pictures here, I used a tripod. For shooting after dark, this is very helpful, as it allows for slow shutter speeds. But it is also possible in the daytime to hold the ball in one hand while photographing it with the other, capturing your hand as the base. Most of my pictures sport a floating ball because I removed the base entirely, but the pictures really do look better when the ball appears to be naturally resting on something. This spring, I can envision the ball resting in mossy grass refracting low-growing wildflowers, or on a beach refracting a starfish.
During drab winter days with no snow, it’s fairly simple to photograph the ball indoors. Inside, a flash yields much better pictures because the ball will pick up window frames and even capture the pictures on the walls. But if you use a flash, you can shoot in a nearly dark room and prevent the walls from showing in the picture.
For the flower photos, I bought the flowers at Wal-mart and captured them indoors on a drab winter day. Abstract light blurs can also be captured indoors by moving colored lights above and behind the ball while using a four-second shutter speed.
As far as camera settings go, there are no absolutes, as each artist is free to decide how blurry he wants the background to be and how blurry he wants the ball’s edge to be. f/5.6 to f/8 will usually yield a somewhat blurry background and a somewhat blurry ball edge, while retaining decent sharpness in the center of the ball. If a person is looking to capture everything in one shot and do a minimum of editing in post, f/5.6 to f/8 is a good place to start.
If you like a sharper ball edge to edge, and a softer background—and you don’t mind doing some layering in post—you can shoot the ball at f/18, then remove the ball and stand and shoot the background at f/2.8. Next layer the two shots together in post processing. All of these photos were done that way. In hindsight, I think my captures would have looked better had I added some blur to the edge of the glass balls. Remember—blur and sharpness are useful tools in directing the eye to the subject, much like darkness and light.
If you are shooting at sunrise and want to capture a sunburst (provided you have a lens conducive to that), you will want to shoot at f/18, as a narrow aperture makes that possible.
When positioning your camera and ball in relation to your subject, do whatever it takes to make your subject appear large in the ball—you don’t want it too small. Remember, you are focusing on the subject in the ball, and you want it to be sharp.
You will also notice that your subject will be captured upside-down in the ball. It’s totally up to you if you want to reverse it
in post, or not. The only time it doesn’t capture things upside-down, is when the ball is refracting something right up against it—which reminds me—the ball makes text look very interesting if you photograph it on a book!
When shooting low-growing flowers or objects up close, many times the subject, ball, and camera yield best results when they are all on the same horizontal level. For taller flowers and landscapes where you want to get more sky in, you want the camera beneath the ball, looking up. Again, it’s all about doing whatever it takes to accomplish what you want with the composition. But remember this—if the sky in your composition is the most interesting thing, make your capture two-thirds sky. If the foreground contains the interest, make it two-thirds foreground.
Make sure your camera is set to take the largest pictures possible, because you will need to crop somewhat. If you try to get too close and avoid cropping, part of your subject will turn out blurry.
Glass balls pose some real danger, and you must be aware of a couple of things. First, if the ball is on top of dry leaves for any period of time with the sun shining through it, it will catch the leaves on fire, because a glass ball acts as a big magnifying glass. So, if you don’t want to be known as the photographer/arsonist of your village, be careful of that ball in full sunlight.
Secondly, the ball is heavy and will cause damage if it falls on something. When I first got my ball, I set it on a tall stand which was out of kilter in my uneven woods. As I was capturing a sunrise, the ball released from the suction cup and plummeted into the snow. At least that was better than hitting me on the head, had I been in the way. Now, I never place the ball above my head, and I make sure I shore up the base of the stand. I would not get a ball larger than 80 mm!
It won’t be long before springtime graces us with the most beautiful season of the year, and I’m looking forward to seeing colorful resurrected beauties refracted in my glass ball. Are you up to the challenge?
