Photograph © Anna Kirsten - please observe copyright info below.

Playing around with a drop on a mirror with a tiny pansy...

Thanks in advance for comments and 's. I apologise for not responding to favourites made, but please know that they are most welcome. I do try to reply to all comments

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Here is my response to the critique...

Thank you very much for your critique, which is a very interesting one indeed, and made me look again to see what you are observing.

In one sense I don't know whether I can say this is 100% fair, except that it's how you see it - and perfectly validly so - because when I look at it, I see quite a lot in pretty sharp focus, including the drop itself. What isn't in sharp focus is the reflection inside the drop or that in the mirror itself, and although the latter is pleasing to me I did want the reflection inside the drop to be sharp. That I certainly didn't succeed in, but I liked the overall effect - as you do (and thanks very much for faving it). (I see it as a play on colours and reflections and nothing more or less than that really.)

The outside of the drop is pin-sharp in fact - it has dust/pollen on it too!!! (It's possible that this looks different on different screens of course, as is so often the case with our images.)

Unfortunately the equipment I was using isn't ideal for real in-depth focusing inside a drop (which was itself revealing a reflected image from inside the mirror as far as I can tell - and what was reflected actually on the drop is quite sharp). I was using several close-up lenses, and this brought the whole thing up to well inside the 1:1 ratio, but with little ability to actually see in detail what the lenses were focused on because the viewing monitor of the Minolta A200 is incredibly small - and rather misleading. Having said that, I have managed to get some really good interior drop reflections using this same equipment, as can be seen with my grass and dewdrop macro shots in my gallery. This suggests to me that, because the main reflection inside the drop in this photo was itself a reflection from a mirror, maybe the ability to focus on that is just not an option? (I tried both auto and manual focusing for this, but as I say, I couldn't really tell from the little screen what I was getting.)

I will accept the critique, because you do make some very valid and interesting points, and thank you very much for taking the time to write what you observed and felt



My Close-up and Macro Gallery [link]