Hôtel de Ville of Paris in a Raindrop

June 07, 2017

HoteldeVille_6M2A5612p (3)

Photographer: Bertrand Kulik
Summary Authors: Bertrand Kulik; Jim Foster

Featured above is a view of the Hôtel de Ville in Paris as seen through a drop of water following an afternoon rain shower. The hotel is actually behind this drop. To take pictures like this I use a special macro lens. However, using such a lens requires a lot of patience and a very steady hand since there's no auto-focus and no vibration correction.

Note the spherical shape of the drop. Surface tension minimizes surface area, so raindrops are often like little globes. When interacting with light the drop behaves like a simple lens, and thus the image is upside-down. Since I prefer to see things right side up rather than inverted, this image has been flipped 180 degrees using standard software.

Photo Details: Camera Model: Canon EOS 5D Mark III; Lens: MP-E65mm f/2.8 1-5x Macro Photo; Focal Length: 65.0mm; Aperture: ƒ/9.0; Exposure Time: 0.0040 s (1/250); ISO equiv: 1600; Software: Adobe Photoshop CC 2015 (Windows).