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Experiments with Mirrors

William H.

Critical Thinker
W
Joined
Feb 26, 2002
Messages
467
I bought a digital camera the other day and I thought for my first photos that I would take some pictures of some experiments that I did with mirrors a while ago. These all use one foot square unbevelled mirror tiles from the hardward store. The first three photos were composed with one magnetic ball sculpture, and three mirrors standing on end surrounding it.

sb3mr.JPG


sb3mr2.JPG


sb3mr3.JPG




This picture is three mirrors in a corner configuration, it is a bit over-exposed, but I still like it.

sb3mr4.JPG


These last two are infinity mirrors, just two mirrors facing each other.

sprblinmr.JPG


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They're kind of fun to play around with, if you're looking for something to do. Hope the pictures aren't too slow to load.
 
Cool pictures, William :cool:

Casual thought: Mysterious "orbs" dont cast a reflection...
 
Neat. And next...video? Ever been in an old fashioned "Hall of Mirrors"? It's very disconcerting.
What result would you get by drilling a pinhole in one of your "infinite" mirrors and photographing through it?

I'll just go for a lie down now.
 
The first few photos are starting to look like a Sierpinski Gasket. Very cool effect.
 
I've got a big mirror in my bedroom, but it only half works. See, it mirrors everything about the vertical axis (left becomes right and right becomes left), but not about the horizontal axis, my head was still at the top. I took the mirror off and turned it 90 degrees -- and this is the weird part -- it still mirrors everything about the vertical axis but not the horizontal axis. Perhaps I need to buy a better brand of mirror.
 
Iconoclast said:
Perhaps I need to buy a better brand of mirror.
Click to expand...

No, what you need to do is have some plastic surgery so that your eyes are lined up vertically on your head, and not horizontally. :D
 
Thanks for the comments and suggestions, I'll try them in the next day or two. My computer at home isn't working, so most of my time is being spent messing with it.

I've got two more different mirror set-ups that I want to photograph, I hope to have a few more new pictures up in a couple of days.
 
See, it mirrors everything about the vertical axis (left becomes right and right becomes left)
Click to expand...

Actually it mirrors everything about the Z-axis :D The left side of your face is still on the left of your mirror image, but you're looking at it back to front.

David
 
davidhorman said:
Actually it mirrors everything about the Z-axis :D The left side of your face is still on the left of your mirror image, but you're looking at it back to front.
Click to expand...
Wow! That actually sounds correct.
 
If you like this kind of thing, try hooking a video camera up to feed directly to a TV, and point it at the TV. I like to do this at Wal-Mart, cause they always have a bunch of different cameras set up, so you can try different ones. It works better with some than others. If you get a good one, you can get some unbelievable effects by tilting the camera and tweaking the zoom and stuff.
 
Zep beat you to it Jon.

William- did you use flash on any of these, or a tripod? Since the pyjamas suggest you took them at night, I'm curious how you handled the lighting. My Fuji would give a noticeable yellow cast under tungsten lighting in shots like these, even with the proper white setting.
 
Iconoclast said:
Wow! That actually sounds correct.
Click to expand...

It is. The mirror reverses back-to-front, which should be obvious, as that's how the light bounces.

The only reason it appears to revers right-to-left is that we can imagine ourselves walking to beyond the mirror and turning around. However, as that involves a rotation rather than just a reflection, it doesn't count.
 
Three mirrors in a cone shape were used for these first three photos:

dspencils.jpg


dspencils2.jpg


dscopp.jpg


In the last one the mirrors are on top of a printed page in a book, it reflects any flat surface into the shape of a ball. This can look very strange when placed on fingers (looks like a brain ball), and looks disturbing if you use the wrinkled palm of the hand. Eyes and teeth also look interesting.








I took a few shots at the inside of the magnetic ball, turned out ever better than I thought it would, that was a great idea from David. The first picture below is from the outside of the ball, the rest are from the inside:




sprbll1.JPG








sprbll2.JPG






sprbll3.JPG







sprbll4.JPG



I'll answer Soapy's question in another post.
 
Soapy Sam said:


William- did you use flash on any of these, or a tripod? Since the pyjamas suggest you took them at night, I'm curious how you handled the lighting. My Fuji would give a noticeable yellow cast under tungsten lighting in shots like these, even with the proper white setting.
Click to expand...

I didn't use a tripod for any of them, I used a flash for only two, the one of the outside of the ball, and the highly over-exposed corner mirrors picture.

The top three were lit with a 60 watt incandescent bulb inside of one of those cheap parabolic reflectors that you can buy at a hardware store, usually used in a workshop or basement. The pictures of the inside of the ball and the cone shaped mirrors were all lit with a halogen desk lamp very close to the subject matter.

I don't have the tools to drill a hole in a mirror, but I did scratch the silver off of the back of one so that I could see through it. I didn't think there would be enough light, but it didn't turn out too bad:

acheckmr.JPG



That dark splotch is the reflection of the hole.

I've got one more mirror set-up that I still want to take some photos with, hopefully some time this weekend.
 
William H. said:


I used a flash for only two, the one of the outside of the ball, and the highly over-exposed corner mirrors picture.
Click to expand...

I think I also used a flash on the first and third pictures, at the start of this thread.
 
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