Hope Jerry Lee Lewis doesn't mind me using his classic line...
Okay. Let's get the obvious one out of the way first. No, I cannot tell your future...even if you cross my palm with free lenses. If you can see into the coming years with this glass sphere, good luck to you. Not every future holds a fortune...
It's a big, polished ball of crystal glass with a very fine surface. It comes on a glass stand, so that you can put it on a surface without touching it - indeed the instructions that come with it tell you not to put your fingerprints all over it or you'll degrade the images you get from it. I wouldn't get in a panic - just don;t drop it and give it an occasional clean with a microfibre cloth.
What does it do? It acts like a spherical lens. It shows an image inside itself of a very wide-angle view - but the image is upside-down. If you want regular images it'll have to be done in post-processing. Unless...
Look at the illustrations - the ones that show the showroom of Camera Electronic are right-side up. That's because we are seeing the front of the ball - there is a black backing board behind it. Remove the board and take it outside and the world revolves 180º.
What happens when you fire a flash down through it?
What happens to the light pattern when you hold it up in front of a studio strobe and blast the light through it? I don't know, but I'll bet it is worthwhile finding out.
What if you put something like a patterned cloth on one side and snuggled right up to it with a macro lens? Or put it against an eye? Or fur? Or skin?
So what are you waiting for? They're in stock right now.
