Through the Soratama Glass

There will be not much text in this post (mostly pictures). I recently acquired new toy: Soratama glass lens attachment. While it is relatively inexpensive (~$50), it provides a way to take non-standard pictures. I found it is even more interesting than a fisheye lens.   Here are some samples from the first session, which I  shot in our front yard:

Metal Butterfly 

 

Red Pot

 

The Rooster

The usage of this photo gear is simple.  First I needed to put the "soratama" in front of my digital camera macro lens. The distance between the lens and the glass ball should be big enough to allow the camera to focus on the ball. Soratama arrived with 20mm extension tube, I had attached it (by scotch) to the old Takumar hood which has approximately the same diameter (72 mm). Hood I had put on Pentax DA 35mm limited macro lens with help of 49mm-58mm step-up ring. Below is the picture of the whole setup:

• Pentax K-01 mirrorless digital camera.
• Pentax DA 35mm Limited Macro lens.
• Polaroid 49-58mm step up ring. 
• Old Takumar hood for telelenses (58mm mount size).
• Soratama 72 mm with 72mm x 20 mm extensions tube.

Shooting itself was confusing at first: the image on the  LCD screen was seen upside down.  But eventually, it was not that hard to get used to.  I shot in raw and processed images (upside-down rotation,  exposure tweaking, some cropping) with Adobe Photoshop Elements 2018.

Update 11/28/2019: One more picture: Pentax Q-S1 + Pentax Q-K adapter + Sigma 24 MM Wide II Macro + 72mm Soratama