wow, that's a really neat picture!! Reminds me of sliders or star trek or something. :)

I feel like maybe you could crop the photo differently somehow, though I'm not sure which way would be better...

Tamara, this is such a cool thing to photograph. You did a very good job. You need the big foreground to give you the feeling that you're slowly going to be sucked in. If you were to crop it differently, I would just crop out some of the white sky in the reflection, but you definitely need a big foreground.

Well, Canon ought to send you a gift basket or something, as you've sold a guy that's on-the-fence. Because your wonderful pictures, I'm going to buy a Canon Powershot Pro 1. I've been debating between that and the Minolta Konica DiMAGE A2, and after seeing your pictures, all I can say is "Wow!"

Thanks Again.

Wow, I'm glad I was so convincing!

I actually debated between those two cameras, though I can't exactly remember now what the pros and cons were of the two cameras. I think the DiMAGE might have had a slightly closer super macro capability. If so, I now don't think I would care because the Pro1 has a very good super macro.

And actually, speaking of super macro, the ONE complaint I have about the Pro1 is that the macro feature is a button on the body of the camera (which is good), but the super macro feature is an option you have to select from a menu. It's the stupidest design ever. So you have to press "menu", then navigate down to the bottom of the list, then navigate up three items, and then press "set". Stupid, stupid, stupid. That said, I've gotten used to it surprisingly quickly!

However, I haven't compared the two cameras to each other in real life, even though a friend friend of mine has the DiMAGE. The thing is that she also has a Canon Digital Rebel and uses that all the time instead of the DiMAGE. So I don't know what that says about the DiMAGE if anything!

Anyway, another good thing I can say about Canon is that their customer service is very nice and responsive. I had a problem with the optical unit (though I didn't know what was wrong) and I sent it back and they fixed it within two weeks. Unfortunately, it came back with new problems (possibly some kind of short), but again, they fixed it immediately. I usually find customer service intensely frustrating, but with Canon the only frustration was that there was a problem at all. However, they didn't give me any trouble at all about sending the camera in and fixed it really quickly. I was extremely happy with them, and now my camera is working beautifully.

Sol, I hope you enjoy your new camera. I'll be watching your photoblog to see what you're doing with it!

Hmmm, you're right, I don't really have all that much to say about the Dimage, except that it's nice and compact and fits in my small purse when my digital rebel is too bulky. Actually, the pro1 has far better macro ability than the A200, but the A200 has image stabilization and the pro1 doesn't. Other than that I can't say much because I've never tried your pro1. Maybe you and I should do a field test some day. :) There are a number of photos on my blog from the A200, but I can't remember off the top of my head which ones.

:), very cool.

What a unique image. It's like a black hole sucking in the universe. All of those wonderful reflections being drawn to the density of the drain. Great photo.

Quite cool sculpture-fountain: it does look like a hole in the water! I like the way you captured it as an interruption in the reflection from the trees behind.

I agree with the comments that leaving the photo composed as it is gives the feeling of impending danger of being sucked into the hole. But perhaps cropping the bottom out so that the hole is centered in a very horizontal composition would make the entire picture more mysterious. It would be less obvious what the hole is and what the liquid is.