
Snowflake macro photography (2013) - runesoerensen
https://chaoticmind75.blogspot.com/2013/08/my-technique-for-snowflakes-shooting.html
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stephen82
Feel free to see all of his photos at
[https://www.flickr.com/photos/alexey_kljatov](https://www.flickr.com/photos/alexey_kljatov)

I'm more than mesmerized by his work; just stunning, I'm in complete awe!

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KGIII
I forget the name, but there's a great documentary about the man and methods
who got it all started. Wilson 'Snowflake' Bentley was the man and, as I
recall, he got some help from his wife and went to great lengths to take his
pictures.

This was back in the 1860s and very difficult. The Smithsonian has some of his
works on display. It is great how accessible this has become. I find them
fascinating but I'm very biased. I have quite an extreme love of snow.

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dmix
I found this short about him, did the job for me, fascinating person - thanks
for the heads up.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptLmA263hlk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptLmA263hlk)

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Nition
It's nice when people get simple tools to do great work. The PowerShot A650 is
a decade old point-and-shoot. He's installed a custom OS to get RAW support,
and averaged several photos together to reduce noise, and what a great result.
An EOS 5D wouldn't do much better.

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steveridout
Is it possible that a high quality camera with a small sensor could actually
be preferable to a full frame camera like a 5D in this particular case? My
thinking is that it might be hard to get more than a sliver of the image in
focus with a full frame camera. Does anyone with more experience know if this
is true?

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Phrodo_00
I don't really know about focus difficulty, but I calculated the 35mm
equivalent of the PowerShot A650 at 6x and it's 200mm. That long of a lens
could be pretty awkward to work with, for a start (I still want to try it, my
APS-C camera would need only a 140mm lens to get the same zoom, besides the
external optics of course).

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devb
I used to use a 200mm lens with a reversed 50mm on a Nikon D70, and the focus
is difficult. It sounds like the photographer here is using a sort of "spray
and pray" technique and using focus-stacking software later.

You actually don't need the telephoto, though. You can get a reversing ring
that mounts a prime lens directly to the camera. I took this using a 50mm lens
on a full frame body, no focus stacking:
[https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/498/19387253482_cfdb183b3a_c.j...](https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/498/19387253482_cfdb183b3a_c.jpg)

If you use a shorter focal length lens, you'll get a higher magnification.
I've used a 28mm in the past but wasn't very happy with the image quality.

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Mitchhhs
Question: What makes snowflakes symmetrical?

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blutfink
I was wondering the same thing. Part of it may be selection bias, though.

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andai
Sexual selection favors the symmetrical ones?

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blutfink
;)

Selection by the photographer might create the impression of a more prevalent,
more perfect symmetry than appears in nature.

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metaphorical
Beautiful.

Reminds me of Wilson Bentley's old photos:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilson_Bentley](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilson_Bentley)

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blubb-fish
It is incredible how complex water is. Chemically it is a super-simple
molecule. For me this is a reminder that in nature even the most simple-
seeming "things" will turn out to be unbelievably complex if researched or
observed more closely. Like when physicists believed that they solved physics
in the late 19th century - b/c it was just about solving some math problems
revolving around Newton mechanics. Nature is consistently always being
surprising - always.

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javiramos
Wow! These images are perfect for a coffee table book. The thin film
interference colors are amazing!

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KGIII
He does sell prints but, as far as I know, doesn't have a whole book out. I
suppose you could email him and ask him to consider it?

In the meantime, you may be interested in this:

[https://www.amazon.com/Art-Snowflake-Photographic-
Album/dp/0...](https://www.amazon.com/Art-Snowflake-Photographic-
Album/dp/076034700X)

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_callcc
Such a relief to see the word in a headline with its actual meaning.

Plus, the pictures are sublime.

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joshvm
I wonder if you could improve the pollen image using super-resolution
techniques Shouldn't be too difficult, just requires a several images (stacks
in this case) from slightly shifted viewpoints.

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nayuki
Kenneth G. Libbrecht snowflake photo collection is another good one:
[http://www.its.caltech.edu/~atomic/snowcrystals/photos3/phot...](http://www.its.caltech.edu/~atomic/snowcrystals/photos3/photos3-old.htm)
; [http://snowcrystals.com/](http://snowcrystals.com/)

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rukuu001
Incredible pictures, and fantastic to see the method documented so well.

I'd read about doing the reverse-lens thing but never seen a setup and
couldn't imagine how it'd work.

Also, the description of his post-processing is revealing. Great to see how
much work goes into pictures like that.

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thinkMOAR
affirmative, i see it pass by about every year since 2013, i still look at
them with as much amazement as i did in 2013.

A reverser ring for a e.g. 50mm to do macro is quite common in photography.
Extender rings work quite nice too, though depth of field becomes mega-
shallow, so for any significant object, you will need to resort to image
stacking to get a properly focused subject.

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noisy_boy
I most impressed by the "less is more" category of photos he took. The clean
lines, simplicity of shapes while maintaining enough contrast to be beautiful
is just astounding. Had no idea that these kind of shapes happened with
snowflakes.

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anoplus
If nature had a logo, it must have hexagon.

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bahjoite
Or "Enigma".

[https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7616/16857912678_239dc8dee5_o...](https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7616/16857912678_239dc8dee5_o.jpg)

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Scarys
It's nice when people get simple tools to do great work.

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bridge_ro
No lie, this was a fantastic way to start my day.

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divbit
These are just the most beautiful pictures.

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amigoingtodie
I have achieved similar results photographing snowflakes w/ an iPhone 4S and a
macro lense I bought for $5 at the Walmart checkout isle.

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kbart
Show us then.

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amigoingtodie
Here's one from a few years ago:

[https://m.imgur.com/a/0PZFM](https://m.imgur.com/a/0PZFM)

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bojanvidanovic
Wow, beautiful nature.

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knolan
That is a horrific site to navigate on mobile.

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ballenf
Yeah, very flaky.

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sid-
very snowflaky :)

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bluetwo
I see what you did there...

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jbeales
Needs a (2013)

