The title of this post was the only instruction I was given for today, along with a link to this Photoradar post. Truth be told, I didn’t read that post at all past looking at the first photo. On this sort of project, I don’t want to be following step-by-steps — the inspiration from the photo up top was all I needed to get the message. So I’m still not sure if I did exactly what they did, but I’m guessing not. For one, I don’t have a macro lens, and I didn’t want to be flipping the 50mm I used ’round to turn it into a macro lens. (I’ve never had the chops to successfully execute that trick in the first place, let alone with the setup I had here.)
What I did end up doing was slapping my camera up on a tripod with a shutter release, with a cerulean-gelled speedlight mounted behind a white screen. (Rita Reed‘s “Metal and Glass” assignment has always stuck with me, I guess. If only I could have shot this back then!) Meena assisted me by triggering the shutter with a remote release, 2.5-second shutter speed in a completely dark room. That long shutter speed allowed me to determine the exact moment I would capture the water droplet far better than if I had tried to sync the shutter with the water droplet.
I quite like most of this image...
...but I like this one's action much more. If I had better Photoshop skills, I would have made a composite of the two.
I just love the moment captured here -- it seems to be the exact moment the water droplet extended fully into the glass. Too bad the rest of the photo isn't as compelling.
Toward the end, I experimented with double exposures. This isn't such a great image, except that I couldn't believe that I scored two direct bullseyes.
Anyone who tells you that taking water droplet photos is a painstaking process… they’re completely correct. If I had been more detail-oriented during this process, I would have dried the set in between each individual photograph, probably with a hair drier.
All the same, it was really fun to pull this off. I had never thought that I had the patience to do water droplet photography, but when made to, it wasn’t so bad after all. Tomorrow will be pretty challenging in rather the opposite direction…
Neat! I’ve seen water drop photos before, but always thought it required special equipment. So thanks for sharing the links/tips! The conversion to a macro is pretty interesting too, but I’d be much t scared to attempt anything like that…
But back to the photos1 I love the turbulence throughout the surface of the water in the first one. Looks like you were also experimenting with the size and angle of entry for the drops. Amazing how much variety can still exist within such a tight focus!
Thanks! That is what I liked about it too; there’s a lot of movement. It ended up being an awful lot of trial and error, more than anything.