Some years back, we suffered a computer hard disk crash.  There were some photos on it, but I did not consider them a great loss, and thought they were backed up… somewhere.  I said “some years back” meaning before I had learned about serious back up and better organization.  (Today, we use three duplicate external hard drives, with more drives for images prior to 2015.)

As time went by, I did not find that back up.  Until recently.

Since I retired as store manager, I have gradually been re-organizing my office.  And, some old CD’s have appeared.  On one of them is this photo, my first good water drop with refraction.  For me, it is important, as it marks a turning point in that part of my photography.  My first success!  Although it is not a perfect photo, I learned much about searching for the right combination of water drop, refracted flower, and light…

This photograph was made in May of 2005.  Minolta had just recently introduced the Maxxum 7D, finally.  Although there was a Minolta DSLR in the late 90’s, it was not a great offering, and we had been anxiously waiting for this camera for at least 4, if not 5 years.  I had opportunity to borrow one to try out, and learned that it was not quite the camera I wanted.

(In January the following year, Minolta sold their camera business to Sony – but that is another story.)

At Cherokee Prairie on this warm, humid morning, there were plenty of water drops, but although I wandered all over the prairie, there were none with the refracted image I wanted.

I was actually heading back to my truck, when this flower and dew drops showed themselves.

So, what I learned is first, not to quit looking!  And, secondly, to always look back toward the sun, because the water sparkles, like diamonds, with the sun behind them.

I set up the tripod, got as close as possible – without knocking the drops off – and made a number of images, at various exposures.  This one was at f/11, 1/60 sec, ISO 200, with the old Minolta 100 macro lens, that I still use today.

Today, I would probably try more compositions than I did that day, and the A7R has 6 times more megapixels than this Minolta did, so cropping to different compositions would also be an option.  Interestingly, there have been very few setups like this one since that day…

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That’s all for now.  Here’s wishing that you always have good light!