Water Drops

Rob Pauza

I've been bored the last few nights and have been playing around with my bathroom faucet and some lights. At first I was trying to shoot with studio strobes and finally had a brain fart that my Speedlites have a high speed sync setting. Anyway, some are a bit soft because of the slow (1/250) shutter I was using at first. I'm going to give it another go sometime, but I was happy enough with them to share. Hope you enjoy...











More here if you're interested http://robpauza.smugmug.com/Art/Water-Drops/15934164_yTSMo#1195113546_MhnEm

-Rob

dixonduke

I like them. I assume the color is from a gel on the strobe?

Rob Pauza

dixonduke wrote: »

I like them. I assume the color is from a gel on the strobe?

Yes sir. It's pretty amazing what gels can do. My sink is amazingly boring otherwise. There is even some rust under the meter faucet part which looks almost like clouds in a few of the photos. -Definitely a happy accident. I was actually pretty shocked to get what I got color-wise. There's some minor color tweaking in Lightroom, but it's pretty much right out of the camera like that.

Well.... since there's an absence of hot women knocking at my door tonight, I'm going to go play in the water some more, hopefully getting better focus results. Thanks for the reply.

-Rob

oldoval

I started playing with water drop shots a few months ago. I've become obsessed with getting nice, sharp images...not an easy task. Good luck.

I like #4.

Lord Vetinari

Lovely series of shots !
You should be able to freeze drop motion better with just normal sync flash with the camera in M mode and flash the major source of light. In this case the flash duration becomes the shutter speed and is normally around 1/1000th sec or faster.
Brian V.

Rob Pauza

Thanks oldoval. It is indeed addictive.... much like gambling in several aspects, only the odds are probably slightly better. I shot probably 150+ to get these. I'm still on my quest to get some razor-sharp images though.

Lord Vetinari wrote: »

Lovely series of shots !
You should be able to freeze drop motion better with just normal sync flash with the camera in M mode and flash the major source of light. In this case the flash duration becomes the shutter speed and is normally around 1/1000th sec or faster.
Brian V.

I'm actually on manual for all these, but of course I'm using the Speedlights through my ST-E2 as if they are they are operating TTL- kind of strange I know, but that's how I was getting the sharpest images. Makes total sense what you're saying though. I'll crank up the lights on manual as well to stop the motion rather than shutter speed. Thanks so much Brian. I'm a big fan of your macro work btw. Maybe I'll try hand holding these and stack focusing like you do. Actually, YOU probably could pull it off somehow. -makes me sick, but in a good way Thanks again for the comment and help. I'll give it another go.

-Rob

cromwell

Hi Rob. If you're getting motion blur while using your flashes as the light source then you need to cut down on the ambient light. I've always found shooting at night works the best. I've also gone as far as putting blankets over the already closed curtains while shooting during the day. Keep your camera manually set to 1/250 sec. or shorter and don't mess with the high speed sync. It would also just take a few trial and error shots to know what to manually set your flashes to, then you won't have any sporadic auto flash speed reads. Even if you have to set them all the way to 1/2 power, which is probably way too much, you're still going to have a flash speed freezing it at around 1/2000 sec. Of course the speeds only get quicker as you lower the flash settings.

Rob Pauza

cromwell wrote: »

Hi Rob. If you're getting motion blur while using your flashes as the light source then you need to cut down on the ambient light. I've always found shooting at night works the best. I've also gone as far as putting blankets over the already closed curtains while shooting during the day. Keep your camera manually set to 1/250 sec. or shorter and don't mess with the high speed sync. It would also just take a few trial and error shots to know what to manually set your flashes to, then you won't have any sporadic auto flash speed reads. Even if you have to set them all the way to 1/2 power, which is probably way too much, you're still going to have a flash speed freezing it at around 1/2000 sec. Of course the speeds only get quicker as you lower the flash settings.

Thanks Cromwell. Macro photography is totally new to me, so I'm still learning and I really appreciate all the help you guys are giving me. It seems that most people are in consensus that a manual flash is the way to go to control the apparent shutter speed.... rather than setting a higher physical shutter speed. I'm going to try that. Thanks again for your comment.

-Rob

Rob Pauza

Okay, I stayed up way too late tonight but here's some better focused pics. I did what you guys suggested by letting the flash dictate the apparent shutter speed, but I'm still using my ST-E2 transmitter to fire them TTL rather than on manual. I just moved them really close to the water drops to take the power down and thus making the flash quicker. Also, I kept the lens pointing more perpendicular to the drops to make the focus plane more in line with the drops. Anyway, here they are.....














And there's WAY more here http://robpauza.smugmug.com/Art/Water-Drops-2/15995217_HJNVn#1199883949_vBgBe


And here's an iPhone pic of my setup:

DeVil

I prefer the second series

Rob Pauza

Thanks DeVil. Me too. I learned a lot from the first attempt.

I just ordered 20x30 metallic prints of these two. My local lab had a buy one/get one free large print special that ran through midnight tonight. I thought they would look especially cool on Kodak Endura Metallic. (Stars and moon are royalty-free NASA images btw)

dixonduke

Boy that last image you just posted above is really nice, probably my favorite yet. Also that is a awesome composite with the moon. Neat idea.

Rob Pauza

dixonduke wrote: »

Boy that last image you just posted above is really nice, probably my favorite yet. Also that is a awesome composite with the moon. Neat idea.

Thanks Duke. I really liked that image as well. I can't wait to see how it looks 20x30 on Metallic. In other news... I did some much needed work on this composite too....