brainwagon

A couple of days ago I published some images that I made by shooting video of a shiny metallic juggling ball. I went out yesterday in search of a better reflector. I visited a couple of specialty industrial suppliers, hoping to score some nice shiny ball bearings, maybe 2″ in diameter. Unfortunately, 1″ ball bearings seemed to be the largest that they had in stock. They were also a bit dingy, and didn’t seem to reflect very well (although they are much more spherical, the tolerance on this is 0.0000256 inches). When I got home, I dug out a batch of cerium oxide polish, and hit one up with a bit of it on a rag, which brightened the reflection quite a bit. I then snapped the following picture (shrunk here):

with my Nikon 4500. While of a boring subject, and in poor light, it showed good detail. Good enough to make the following virtual environment:

Much better than my previous attempt. A 2″ ball bearing would be even better.