In Pictures: High-res snowflake camera captures magical images
- Published
“Snowflakes are a great example of hidden beauty. Water, an incredibly familiar thing to all of us, is quite unfamiliar when you see it in this different view." - Nathan Myhrvold, photographer
Only a few millimetres across, snow crystals present a challenge to film due to their size and fragility.
With a subject as delicate as snowflakes, time, temperature, weather conditions and equipment are extremely important for a photographer.
Photographer Nathan Myhrvold spent about 18 months designing and building a custom snowflake camera so that he could photograph snow crystals.
To keep the snowflakes from melting or vapourising too quickly, the microscope has a cooling stage, giving Nathan more time to capture his images.
These photographs were shot on location in Alaska and the Northwest Territories, Canada. Some of the best snowflakes Nathan found were at temperatures between –26 to –29 °C. Chilly!
The camera is paired with high-speed LED lights to reduce the heat they release and increase the speed at which a photographer can capture the image. The camera has a minimum shutter speed of 500 microseconds. That's pretty quick!
- Published11 June 2020
- Published2 January 2019
