Downward reflections are a popular effect in photos that enhances the three-dimensional image impact. This is mostly created artificially in image processing. Here we reveal how you can achieve such a reflection in a physical way for macro shots and focus stacking photography.
I remember very clearly the first time I saw a macro photograph of a prepared insect with a reflection in the black ground surface. It was taken by a photographer from England and I was absolutely fascinated by the aesthetic effect. In fact, artistic design had already been used here, in contrast to a factual photo of the insect, which has a documentary character. But here you could see creativity and a great deal of aesthetics.
For a long time I tried in vain to penetrate the secret of this method of photography. The British photographer himself naturally left my inquiries unanswered. Who wants to let copycats look into their cards.
After researching on the internet, I finally found out that you can do this with a glass plate. There has to be a free space underneath the glass plate that absorbs the light coming from above so that it does not enter the picture as a reflection, but the background becomes pitch black. However, as the glass plate reflects a small part of the incident light on its surface, the little light reflected by the insect directly to the glass plate reaches the lens as a reflection.
My own experiments followed, for the sake of simplicity on my desk at the time, which I had built from the front pane of my former 6,000-liter saltwater aquarium that had been dismantled after 20 years of operation. The glass plate had a thickness of 19 millimeters, and although I got a bottom reflection of the photographed beetle on a black background, it did not satisfy me because it was double.
This was due to the fact that a glass plate produces two reflections; one when the light enters the glass, in which some of the photons are reflected, and a second when the light exits, in which some of the light is also reflected back. The result was a blurred image that did not match my expectations.
Experiments with thinner glass panes brought the two individual images closer together, but it remained a double image, and I was dissatisfied with that.
The next step was to experiment with a black, light-absorbing layer of felt about five centimeters behind the glass pane – another piece of advice I had read in a website article. This made the black of the background in the photo deeper, but the double reflection remained.
I then decided to try a different material, especially as I had never found a relaxed relationship with working with glass – it always broke differently than I had planned. On the other hand, I had decades of experience with acrylic glass and had suitable machines in my small workshop. That's why I started experimenting with black and white acrylic sheets. As I was working with light diffusers, the acrylic sheets had to be sawn and sanded to a slightly conical shape. It was also important that they were really high-gloss and scratch-free. The material can be ordered on Ebay cut to the desired size and covered with protective film on both sides (important!). I chose 10 x 10 cm.
After two saw cuts and some sanding work, the sheets had the required shape, as I had to be able to push them far into the diffuser funnel. Depending on the shape and dimensions of your light diffuser or the size of your acrylic sheets, this processing step may not even be necessary. The protective film was only removed shortly before the photos were taken.
The first attempts at taking pictures were very encouraging, as they showed that I was on the right track with this material. However, the acrylic also had a decisive disadvantage: it attracted tiny dust particles from the air due to its static charge. Manual cleaning by wiping could remove these, but increased the static charge of the panel, which attracted even more dust particles.
In order to at least minimize this problem, I used a humidifier in the very small room (approx. 16 square meters), which worked with water and thus also carried out a kind of air washing, i.e. removed dust particles from the room air. The result was better, but there were still white-looking dust particles on the black acrylic panel in the finished photo, often in large quantities.
This problem could only be solved by subsequent image processing on the computer. Fortunately, image optimization with modern image editing programs (I use Affinity Photo for this) is extremely easy, so that these dust particles can be removed with reasonable post-processing. However, never forget to remove the dust particles that you delete in the base area of your bug from its reflection further down, as they will also appear there.
You can also reduce the brightness of the subject's bottom reflection. This works well because the viewer's eye always wants some kind of prioritization, something that catches the eye more than anything else. In this case, the beetle is the main motive, so it needs to be more brightly lit than its reflection in the acrylic panel, because then the viewer's eye won't wander around the picture looking for a fixed point; it will automatically emerge due to the differences in brightness – a trick from the advertising industry. It is therefore better to darken the reflection slightly; this also corresponds to natural perception, as the sunlight hits an object from above.
While I worked with a very simple support structure for these acrylic plates during the first attempts in order to attach them to the focus stacking setup at the required angle, I later came up with a device on which the plates can be easily attached in such a way that their angle can also be adjusted. These plates are also easily interchangeable, e.g. to switch between black and white.
Creating this device is relatively simple. In my case, the basis is the height-adjustable object holder that I usually use on my focus stacking setup. However, it has a modular design and can carry customized attachments, each designed for different tasks. It has an element for height adjustment and a ball head to which the appropriate holding module is attached. In this case, it should be the acrylic plate.
I used two base plates from discarded flash units to attach the acrylic plate to the 1/4-inch thread of the ball head.
The tops of these two panels have been sanded flat so that the acrylic panels can be glued to them.
In order to be able to easily replace the plates later when they show micro-scratches from cleaning (after all, you can see everything in macro shots!), I used the thick Nano-Tape as adhesive, which is available in roll form and sticks on both sides so that it can be removed relatively easily later without leaving any residue.
These two flash holders were glued to the underside of the acrylic plates and the result was high-gloss black and white mounting plates with a 1/4-inch thread on the underside, which could be easily screwed onto the tripod thread of the ball head.
The transparent nanotape also helps to solve another problem: due to the inclined position of the acrylic plate and its smooth surface, prepared insects tend to gradually slide downwards during the series of shots. When using flash units, this can even go so far that the light impulse causes the insect to jump briefly, presumably due to static charge. This is why at least a light, temporary attachment is essential. I use a tiny piece of this nanotape for this, but it is only a little more than a millimeter in size.
It is glued to the plate with pointed tweezers in order to press the insect lightly against it with the side of its body that is not visible to the camera. The adhesive is then invisible to the lens, but the adhesive force is sufficient to prevent it from moving during photographing. The insect can then be easily removed without leaving a trace.
The results of this shooting strategy are photos that have very special aesthetic qualities and artistic design. But don't be under any illusions about the time and effort involved. Such photos are never taken in passing.
You will need to take numerous series of pictures to find the best perspective of each insect. Turn the insect to the left and right in small steps. Vary the angle of inclination of the acrylic plate in one direction or the other. Look for the best aesthetic effect of your photo model like a photographer taking a picture of a new sports car model for the sales brochure.
As a rule, there is only one single shooting position in which the aesthetic qualities of the animal really come into their own, and you can usually only find this through trial and error. You can only see this in the finished photo. This means that you may have to work for two or three hours at a time to achieve your goal, and sometimes without ending up with a perfect picture – it just doesn't really fit one hundred percent. Don't be discouraged in such cases; it's usually the model's fault and not yours. Not every beetle is actually suitable. Just try another one before you invest a lot of time in post-processing the photo.
The color of the background shapes the photo in a very decisive way. Black has a mysterious effect and creates a strong artistic tension, but also swallows up details. White, on the other hand, has a more analytical and documentary effect; the underside of the subject is much better lit because the white background reflects a lot of light upwards. However, the ground reflection is much weaker and colorless. Both have their advantages and disadvantages, and both can be the ideal solution. So try out both color variants if you are not sure which you like better.
But if you create a picture here and there that is aesthetically pleasing and you still like it even after a few days or weeks, then you have a motive that you can hang on the wall in large format. I have had such insects, which I have photographed on acrylic, printed behind an acrylic plate, because the colors are particularly strong here and the motive comes into its own much better than if it were printed on paper.
The lenses I use for such photos are almost always two Nikon film scanner lenses: the 7-lens for 1.5:1 to 2:1 and the 14-lens for 1:1 or slightly below. The sharpness and color contrast of these two lenses are simply phenomenal. For smaller image scales, I choose a Canon RF 100 mm f2.8 L, and of course you can use any other macro lens you like.
In addition to black and white acrylic sheets, you can also experiment with other materials and colors. Readers of this blog post referred to their own experiences and suggested, for example, the display of a switched-off smartphone or tablet computer (Janusz Szymanski, Ben Gruver), which has an extremely thin glass pane so that no secondary reflection can be seen. Scott Burgess, on the other hand, recommended a ceramic tile with a black glaze.
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