From The Wrong Side of the Condensor
This is a horrible picture, because I didn’t bother with setting up the right kind of lighting and/or moving the specimen to better conditions. As a result, the tungsten filament light was refracted through the side of the ornamented glass pitcher, resulting in the bands visible here (correcting for tungsten is easy – uneven lighting, not so much).
When Orange Juice Goes Bad
Informationally speaking it’s a rather rich photograph, and a fairly intriguing accidental science experiment. The more I think about it the more I’d love to have a good lab setup, for proper handling and chemical analysis – they’re making rapid improvements to the “lab on a chip” configurations for field work that I hope to eventually benefit from. Until then I can’t really justify the expense of my curiosity. Not even when there’s Science to do.
Forensically speaking, even lighting is necessary for a good documentary photo. Artistically speaking, even lighting is not always the best. I think the bands of lighting here provide much greater depth and interest. It does appear to me that there was some curvature to the pitcher. I would recommend a little more depth of field (stop that aperture down) to bring out the detail in the swirling orange juice in greater sharpness and clarity. It looks like a really fun picture, I may have to set some OJ out on the counter for a day or two…
What I really should have done was put on the macro lens – the camera in question (our old 5MP Olympus E20n) doesn’t focus well closer than about 6″ – and brought in some supplemental lighting.