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.
 
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.
All I’ve got is something plastic, like a plate or something.
It is not plastic and that is all I can say. Andrew will not let me say anything else.
lipstick? nail polish? with a hair stuck to it?
Nope, I’ll let Denise chime in before I give another hint.
Sweet Bocce!
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?
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?
if the bocce ball is not made of plastic, what is it made of? just curious.
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.
Next time do a half inch square and give us a chance. :)
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.
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