Macro Mystery #1
September 20th, 2007 at 09:55pm Let's play a game I like to call "Tell Me What This Is A Picture Of"! I was tinkering around and read up a little on macro photography. Turns out you can stack lenses and by some sort of optical magic you get a nice super duper macro lens. So I opened my 50mm f/1.8 up to f/1.8, held it to the front of my 18-200mm, setup a manual exposure (f/16, 1/250), and setup my flash (1/8 power) to fire remotely off camera. My lenses normally only focus down to about a foot, even at 200mm that doesn't get you terribly close. Stacking the lenses let me focus at a little less than one inch because of previously mentioned optical magic; only problem is the depth of field is only several millimeters. Such a small depth of field makes focusing hard, really hard. Since Kevin doesn't do MindTrap Monday anymore I figured we needed some sort of riddle posts going on. So who will be the first to guess what the Macro Mystery shot below is of? Hint about scale: The image covers about 1/4 inch square.
 Update: Paul wins and here's the whole thing. The macro shot is of the scuff right there on the front.
 
13 Comments Add your own
1. amy | September 20th, 2007 at 10:25 pm
this is tough. i stared at this picture for a very long time. all i can think of is that maybe it’s a little tiny section of some kind of brick sort-of walk way something. hahahaha. but it’s hard knowing that this image is so magnified. i’m trying to imagine what this looks like as 1/4 inch and it’s hard. i give up. i hope when you give us the answer you can post a picture of the whole thing from farther away so we can see how this piece fits into it all.
2. nathan118 | September 21st, 2007 at 5:41 am
All I’ve got is something plastic, like a plate or something.
3. sarah | September 21st, 2007 at 6:50 am
It is not plastic and that is all I can say. Andrew will not let me say anything else.
4. Judy | September 21st, 2007 at 8:15 pm
lipstick? nail polish? with a hair stuck to it?
5. Andrew Charlton | September 21st, 2007 at 8:18 pm
Nope, I’ll let Denise chime in before I give another hint.
6. paul | September 21st, 2007 at 10:33 pm
Sweet Bocce!
7. Denise | September 21st, 2007 at 10:36 pm
Chiming: First of all “its a quarter inch square” is not a hint. It’s a reminder that this is a picture of some small part of something.
Second, I have no idea what it is. Should I know?
8. Andrew Charlton | September 21st, 2007 at 11:01 pm
Paul got it. Well the scale wasn’t a true hint but it would have been a little tougher without knowing. My next hint would have been what’s with that groove and what’s in it?
9. Judy | September 22nd, 2007 at 10:12 am
if the bocce ball is not made of plastic, what is it made of? just curious.
10. Andrew Charlton | September 22nd, 2007 at 12:08 pm
Couldn’t find a definitive answer to what a bocce ball is made of but seems like some are made from a hard resin, others have 3 layers kind of like the earth, hard outer resin shell and then another layer and the core. I would guess my set is of the latter design since the surface layer differs from the stuff underneath.
11. nathan118 | September 22nd, 2007 at 11:39 pm
Next time do a half inch square and give us a chance. :)
12. Andrew Charlton | September 23rd, 2007 at 8:55 am
I’m looking at other macro solutions like extension tubes and dedicated macro lenses that will give me a little more flexibility. I’ll do something a little more common next time too.
13. Geeky Weekly » Macr&hellip | October 4th, 2007 at 9:32 pm
[...] already for another brain buster, just not quite as difficult as the last one. If you missed out on Macro Mystery #1 check it out for a little background on how I actually took the photo. This time around I used a [...]
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