One thing I love about the internet is that somebody is always willing to put in the time to try something barmy so you don’t have to. And in this case, it’s substituting an interchangeable lens for a glass vase.
Pavel Mamontov is a photographer and the creative mind behind YouTube channel Lensevision. The whole channel is dedicated to fun photography experimentation, from stacking two lenses on top of one another to using a lightbulb as a DIY flash gun; Pavel has the answers to the questions you probably never had in the first place, but are mighty interesting nonetheless.
In the vase video, the creator notes that shining a light through a glass vase produces some pretty interesting patterns. So, what happens if you stick the vase on the end of a DSLR camera, turn off all the lights, and shine a light through it? Well, you get some pretty incredible-looking abstracts.
As you can see from the main image, Pavel likens the results to those captured using a microscope, and I couldn’t agree more. You’d be forgiven for thinking they were a form of photomicrography.
I was interested to read one of the comments by @uninitializedvariable, who said: “This was one of the ways we created elements for visual effects in the early 80s; by sitting in a dark room and shining light through practically everything transparent we could get our hands on, projecting the result against a matte wall and filming it on 16 or 35mm Arriflex.”
So there you have it. You can use a glass vase as a makeshift lens to capture ethereal abstracts that look like microscopic worlds or VFX shots from the 1980s.
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