We think that taking pictures through crystal balls can be fun and took a small one on our trip to SE Asia. The image below is a composite of two shots, taken one after another of the same scene at sunrise. For the first shot, the camera was focused on the lake in front of Angkor Wat. The second shot was focused on a two inch crystal ball held by our tour guide. The two shots were merged in Photoshop. This is similar to a technique used in landscape astrophotography to extend depth of field. (The camera was hand-held in low light, so extending depth of field via aperture wasn’t an option.)
The image in a crystal ball is inverted since it is essentially a lens, in fact, a very wide angle lens. The lake in front of Angkor Wat contains an inverted image of the temple. The crystal ball inverts the lake reflection and actual temple, placing the reflection on top and the actual temple on the bottom.
iball round the world 