Dew Drop Refractions

Daisy in a Dew Drop series 1-1
Originally uploaded by Dalantech.

Here’s a fun and easy thing to do when you’re out early and you can’t find any critters. Just pick a wild flower (I chose a daisy for this shot) and place it about an inch (2.54cm) behind a blade of grass that has a dew drop hanging from the end of it. Look for a drop that’s about 2mm in diameter (the bigger the better) and shoot the refraction of the flower at twice life size. I set my aperture to F14 just to get a good balance between depth of field and image sharpness. The only hard part, at least for me, was getting the flower sharp in the dew drop –the area where I was shooting was shaded and the modeling lights on the MT-24EX are almost a joke. I also paid attention to the angle I was shooting at since I wanted to get as much of the grass blade in focus as possible, and I was looking for a dual composition –the flower in the drop and the out of focus flower in the background.

Shooting the refraction of an object in a dew drop isn’t a new idea –far from it. But I like the results and it’s something to do on cool mornings when the critters are still sleeping :)