{"id":10262,"date":"2025-09-14T18:58:32","date_gmt":"2025-09-14T18:58:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/?p=10262"},"modified":"2025-09-14T18:59:48","modified_gmt":"2025-09-14T18:59:48","slug":"experimenting-with-convex-mirror-and-a-crystal-ball-in-the-conservatory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/?p=10262","title":{"rendered":"Experimenting with Convex Mirror and a Crystal Ball in the conservatory"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As is my want, while it has been raining, I have been experimenting with reflections using a convex mirror and a small crystal ball all in our small conservatory. I have learned a lot as I have taken and processed the photos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are the results from this week – still not perfect but, I feel, progress is being made:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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First attempt with the convex mirror and the crystal ball showing plants in the conservatory<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

With these first attempts I didn’t do anything with the backgrounds so that is a distraction. I was also using the camera hand-held. This meant that in most of them you can see my hands or the camera just peeking into view in the mirror.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Second attempt with the convex mirror and the crystal ball showing plants in the conservatory. In this I got closer in so only part of the mirror shows<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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Third attempt with the convex mirror and the crystal ball showing plants in the conservatory. This has the image in portrait mode and you can see the camera clearly in the mirror<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Then earlier today I had another go. This time with a black background and having the camera on a tripod so I can ensure it doesn’t show:<\/p>\n\n\n

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This version now has a black background.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Depth of field is a problem. The ball is in focus but the plants in the mirror are not, despite a small aperture being used. In the next attempt I use the technique known as ‘focus stacking’ which has helped with this issue:<\/p>\n\n\n

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A focus stacking attempt with the convex mirror and the crystal ball showing plants in the conservatory.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

This is the best attempt so far, but there are still issues that I need to fix. But that is all part of the learning process…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As is my want, while it has been raining, I have been experimenting with reflections using a convex mirror and a small crystal ball all in our small conservatory. I have learned a lot as I have taken and processed the photos. Here are the results from this week – still not perfect but, I … Continue reading “Experimenting with Convex Mirror and a Crystal Ball in the conservatory”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[149,98,86,117,3,65,131],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conservatory","category-crystal-ball","category-focus-stacking","category-house-plants","category-photography","category-technical","category-tests-and-trials"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10262"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10262\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10271,"href":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10262\/revisions\/10271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pmstudios.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}