CWW Loc: North Jersey

Sorry if this is a duplicate entry, hit the wrong button.
My question: Any Hoggers doing crystal ball photography? I would appreciate your comments on the size and brand of crystal ball to purchase. Also, which lens works best for landscape or, portrait photography?
Camera: Sony A77ll.
Lens: 16-50
24-70
70-300
Mucho Gracias for your comments and advice!

tradio Loc: Oxford, Ohio

Portrait 70-300
Landscape 16-50
General walking around 24-70

Scruples Loc: Brooklyn, New York

Do a search for crystal ball photography if you haven’t don’t that before. I have also seen a Hoggers invention of a crystal ball holder. Needless to say or write this is an interesting distraction during the COVID Pause.

Happy Shooting!

CWW Loc: North Jersey

Yup, I've watched a few YOU TUBE videos, many options for crystal balls on Amazon. Just thought I'd reach out to the forum. Thanks for the reply.

Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington

Jim-Pops has used them:
https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-629838-1.html

Dixiegirl has used them:
https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-647215-1.html#11232914

They are both active members on UHH.

Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington

Regarding focal lengths for landscape photography: don't squeeze yourself into too tight a box. 70 mm and longer can produce fantastic landscapes. The focal length should be determined by your subject, distance, foreground and what story you wish to tell. For ideas on shooting landscapes with longer lenses, see:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=using+telephoto+lens+for+landscape+photography

Also:
https://www.michaelfrye.com/2019/07/11/depth-with-telephoto-lenses/#more-18587
and
https://www.outdoorphotographer.com/tips-techniques/nature-landscapes/long-lens-landscapes/

.

Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington

For portraiture, check in with the pro managers of this section of UHH:
https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/s-127-1.html

There is more to portrait photography than focal length too

CWW Loc: North Jersey

Thank you, very helpful.

CWW Loc: North Jersey

Again, thank you!

User ID

When I read the OP I actually thought it was all one question ... IOW a question about crystal ball imaging of portrait and landscape subjects.

Reading the rest of the thread was a little bit of a letdown when I saw that it was not all one idea. But ! Why not ?!?

I’m not the first nor the last person to do fisheye portraits. And crystal balls are a special version of fisheye imaging, so has anyone got any crystal ball portraits to show us all ?

What about crystal ball selfies, weddings, or street ? Please, if you’ve got some let’s see them !

(I didn’t ask about landscapes cuz I’ve already seen plenty of those.)

CWW Loc: North Jersey

Yup, I agree I could have worded my request more clearly. I'm looking for information regarding a recommended brand of crystal ball to be used for landscape and portrait photography. Sorry about that....

PixelStan77 Loc: Vermont/Chicago

https://www.ebay.com/itm/100mm-Clear-Crystal-Ball-Glass-Quartz-Magic-Sphere-Healing-For-Gifts/313113536521?

I bought mine from them.

User ID

Wait wait wait !!! It’s those reply posts that discuss “portrait” and “landscape” lens suggestions in their same old “parrots repeat parrots” manner that gave me the mistaken impression of two separate “OP queries” in one post. The two queries being (A.) a recommendation for a crystal ball and then, separately, (B.) the same-old-same-old “portrait lens” type of question. It’s sooooo good to read that it never was two separate queries:-)

Terrific !! If I read you correctly, right above here, you indeed actually had only ONE unified query in that first post. You really DO plan to use the crystal ball for portraits, and THAT is way cool.

So, whether portrait or landscape, when the crystal ball is involved none of that old parrot talk about “portrait lens” and “landscape lens” is true anymore.

You’ll use the very same lens for portraits and landscapes and really ALL subjects ... whenever your subject is “captive” in the crystal ball.

No one can prescribe you a particular lens to use without knowing how large a ball you intend to buy. Basically all your subjects are just one subject ... that ball. So you’ll be using a convenient close focusing lens to shoot an egg size (or apple or grapefruit size ?) glass object, plus some amount of the visual space around it.

I was doing some shots very similar to capturing the subject inside a glass ball. I was using a small clear jar filled with clean water. It was a while ago but IIRC it involved a tripod, a longish macro prime, and various apertures to fuss over the rendering of what is incidentally seen beyond the jar.

BebuLamar

You can take pictures of things happen in the future?

billnikon Loc: Pennsylvania/Ohio/Florida/Maui/Oregon/Vermont

In movies Crystal Balls seemed to be about the size of a bowling ball.
My favorite landscape lens is the Nikon 16-35 f4, so I would go with the 16-50 for that, although it depends, sometimes you like to capture distant objects so the 70-300 would be good for that, and if your in low light outside, say in the early morning, the 24-70 2.8 might be nice to have in the bag.
For portraits, my favorite lens is the 70-200 2.8 lens because I can shoot wide open at 2.8 and get that great out of focus background. Your 70-300 I believe is slow and may not be able to isolate the subject as well but I would still go with that one for portraits. If you want to start a business in portraiture you might want to consider a 70-200 2.8.
Good luck and keep on shooting until the end.