I had to learn how to set up my flash "off-camera". That means I had my camera on one tripod, shooting the subject, while the flash was on a second tripod, providing lighting from the side. Then, a clear dish with water in it, and an excited assistant, letting the droplets fall from above. The trick is that the room has to be dark, so the flash freezes the action for the camera.
The Photos
One of the more interesting aspects of this shoot is getting the focus just right. The Aperture is wide open, and the camera set to shutter priority. The depth of field is remarkably narrow, so some drops are in focus, others are not - in the same photo !
I'm quite proud of this one. About the only way I could improve it would be to have a 100% black background under the dish. The island counter is a speckled grey affair.
In this photo, the bottom droplet appears to be floating in the crater the droplet created, and you can see two more droplets directly above.
Finally, while slightly out of focus, the droplets are neatly stacked, and the shadows of the ripples have a beautiful definition to them.
Lessons Learned
This was a fun shoot. It took me a little while to learn how to trigger the remote flash (thanks YouTube for the quick lesson !), and then more time setting up the tripods and lining everything up. Having shot a few dozen pictures, and only four worth showing off, I believe I will try this setup again and make some tweaks.
2 comments:
This one I understood, and liked very much!
Well done Mark
Looking at similar examples of water droplets, I think I would change two things:
1) I would change the background - perhaps a black or very dark background under/behind the glass dish of water.
2) I would change the camera angle to get lower - there's so much of the pan of water in the shots. I think if the shooting angle was shallower, it would isolate the droplets better.
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