Water Drop C&C

Stephen P

Comments, advice, suggestions welcome on how to improve this type of shot.

magicbastarder

your perspective is too high. the droplet is not isolated enough from everything else in the shot.

Stephen P

The setup I had wasn't ideal and this was the best I could manage. I would have rathered a more closer shot and lower too. For first attempt I'm happy with it

5uspect

Try some food dye and get down low.


Can you give us a bit more info on your technique?
I used a 50mm f/1.8 and extension tubes with an off camera flash.

I used a drinking straw to drop water into a plate. Ideally I would set up a siphon system to create regular droplets but I didn't have any decent tubing to hand.

Stephen P

Very nice photo! What exposure did you use for that? What backdrop did you use?

The setup I used wasn't great, I put a glass bowl under my kitchen tap and let the water drip down. The lighting was very bad, I had to use the on-camera flash plus external flash fired wirelessly from slightly above.
I used 50mm f36 exp. 1/80sec.
The food dye is a very good idea, I seen that on another site and had it in mind to experiment with it when I get a decent setup with more lighting.

Tallon

Here's mine...





And here's a guide on how I did it

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055925638

mehfesto

Here's my one too.



Slightly more DIY and 'cosier' (i.e. not half enough room - all this rested on a bedside locker!) :pac:

alexlyons

how do you guys sync the drop hitting and the flash firing?

mehfesto

alexlyons wrote: »

how do you guys sync the drop hitting and the flash firing?

I was trial and error. I'd no shutter release, so I was dropping dye onto the water as I clicked the shutter release.

There's a guy online who has a very complex set up where he times how long the drop takes to hit the water and uses a delay between the release of the drop on the shutter release. Bang on every time. He's on flickr. I'll post vids/pics if I can find.

5uspect

Stephen P wrote: »

Very nice photo! What exposure did you use for that? What backdrop did you use?

The setup I used wasn't great, I put a glass bowl under my kitchen tap and let the water drip down. The lighting was very bad, I had to use the on-camera flash plus external flash fired wirelessly from slightly above.
I used 50mm f36 exp. 1/80sec.
The food dye is a very good idea, I seen that on another site and had it in mind to experiment with it when I get a decent setup with more lighting.

I used 1/4000s as I was getting some motion blur.
I used a white plate and a white sheet of A4 paper in the background. Other than that my setup was similar to mehfesto's.

With a siphon system or pump you could create a air/liquid droplet train using a tee and get very regular droplets.

the_monkey

5uspect wrote: »

I used 1/4000s as I was getting some motion blur.
I used a white plate and a white sheet of A4 paper in the background. Other than that my setup was similar to mehfesto's.

With a siphon system or pump you could create a air/liquid droplet train using a tee and get very regular droplets.

could you use the external flash at 1/4000's ?

5uspect

Yep, with high speed sync on the 580EX.

the_monkey

5uspect wrote: »

Yep, with high speed sync on the 580EX.

ah very nice ! , i went cheap and got the 430 EX II, can only sync to 1/200 s on that ...

AnimalRights

Well lads yas will never see me do a drop shot, so much work in the set up, I rarely ever use a tripod cos thats too much hassle!

5uspect

the_monkey wrote: »

ah very nice ! , i went cheap and got the 430 EX II, can only sync to 1/200 s on that ...

No you haven't! That's a high speed sync button right there with the second curtain sync:

magicbastarder

they're a bit of a technical rather than an aesthetic exercise.

5uspect

AnimalRights wrote: »

Well lads yas will never see me do a drop shot, so much work in the set up, I rarely ever use a tripod cos thats too much hassle!

Well you just wouldn't be able to take such a photograph, simple as that. :cool:
But it's okay we won't judge you.

Adrian.Sadlier

This is the setup I used. http://pix.ie/asadlier/1464381



This is another of my favourites. Trail and error with a lot of failed shots i.e > 95%

the_monkey

5uspect wrote: »

No you haven't! That's a high speed sync button right there with the second curtain sync:

Nice one, I underuse this flash, now i have my next project idea!!

and super shots there Adrian

Thecageyone

All you need is a kitchen sink, a flash and some coloured gels. I think higher perspectives can work too:



1/250, f/9, Lee flame red gel taped onto the flash head. 50mm. Very little set up here, rainy day boredom is all it took.

Catch them falling for a little more abstractivity:



1/200, f/16, 70mm, some blue gel attached this time

Adrian.Sadlier

the_monkey wrote: »

Nice one, I underuse this flash, now i have my next project idea!!

and super shots there Adrian

Thanks "The Monkey". I just put them up as an example of what can be done with a basic setup. The fact that the sink and tap were stainless steel helped a lot. The sparkle on the drop in the second phot was from the flash bounced off the tap - pure luck!

Thecageyone

Steel sinks rule for this.

pbuckland05

I tried this myself my set up was to use a black bucket to the brim with water and have the coloured card as a back ground I remotely fired the flash through the card


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