Interesting Photo of the Day: Macro of Oil on Coffee

Interesting Photos  •  Macro Photography

One very interesting aspect of macro photography is how anything can be a potential subject. Macro lenses have the ability to take a magnified image of objects from a very close distance – something that our eyes are not designed to do. This unique perspective is the core reason why many of us find macro photographs fascinating. Photographer Sam Stephens took a macro image of some olive oil drops on coffee, and the image really looks like something out of this world:

“Oil Drops Floating on Coffee” by Sam Stephens (Via Reddit. Click image to see full size.)

Stephens took the image with a Nikon D7200 and Nikon 40mm f/2.8 macro lens at f/11, 1/6-second exposure, and ISO 640. In order to illuminate the drops, he used his cell phone light and an LED flashlight. This is what has caused the light trails to appear in the image.

“It was a ton of fun to play with. You could easily get different effects by coloring the water, changing the water depth, and using colored LED lights.”

It’s quite impossible to decipher what this image is unless you’re told directly, of course. You might even confuse it for some astronomical bodies with the deep sky as their background. The small white particles on the coffee appear almost like distant stars.  And the light source he placed on the right-hand corner gives the feeling of a nearby star – the sun perhaps.

What was your initial impression when you saw this image?