Mathieu Stern Made a Camera Lens with an Iceberg #celebratephotography

This is just way too cool. From Mathieu Stern on YouTube:

Now the facts :

– First of all the life-span of a lens made of ice is very short, so you can’t move very far from where you create the lens.

– Focusing is extremely hard because of the water melting on the lens itslef.

– Shaping one ” lens” takes 45 min because of the ambiant cold.

– If your lens breaks in the mold, you have to start all over again

– I hacked a Japanese cocktail ice ball maker to create half spheres.

– The housing of the lens was made using a home made 3D print model.

– All photos where shot during the 1 minute of the last ice lens.

– The video at the beginning of the video was shot in the last usable seconds of the last ice lens.

– No I didn’t ruined my camera with water damages, even if it was pretty dangerous, I managed to keep the inside dry.

Now if people asks me “Are you happy with the result ? it’s a bunch of blurry photos !?”, my response would be : “this project is a scientific, artistic and poetic project, I never imagined the result would look like the photos that comes from an ultra modern lens, but I was amazed by the strange beauty of the images I made with the first ever 10 000 year old lens.”

This is not a project for everyday photography, it was an adventure and a bet that when you have a crazy hypothesis, you should do everything to experiment it in the field.

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We #celebratephotography here at Adafruit every Saturday. From photographers of all levels to projects you have made or those that inspire you to make, we’re on it! Got a tip? Well, send it in!

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