water drop.. attempt 2

racefan

i know these are not perfect but better then the first time. I will say for everyone that gets theres crystal clear you either have a lot of patience or im still doing something wrong.
i set up a pan filled with water and a bagger fiiled with water to put a hole in for the drip. after i put the whole in the baggy to get where the drip was hitting, i then used a pen to set my auto focus and after doing so i switched the camera to manual. i used my corded remote for the shutter. There not as sharp as i would like.

all C & C welcome......thanks

1


2


3


4

Lord Vetinari

Certainly looking better. Good series !

One thing re the setup. I think most people take these with flash which allows a smaller aperture and hence greater dof. eg camera in manual 1/200th ISo100/200, Flash in TTL, F11/F13 (This may be near F22-F26 on a NIkon with the lens near 1:1)

Brian V.

Rob Pauza

Looks like you've about got it. I've found that getting my flashes (speedlights) as close as possible to the drips allows me to get the most light in a compact/quick light burst. (The more powerful the flash, the longer it strobe lasts) And therefore, the slower apparent shutter speed you will get. The flash dictates the shutter speed in this case. It's really just dragging the shutter. Even though your sync speed is 1/125 or 1/250, you will get an effective speed of roughly 1/1000 or so.

My best mixture I've found is ISO 400 f15 with a sync speed of 1/250. I'm using a Canon ST-E2 transmitter to control my two Speedlites via TTL, but I'm guessing they are firing at about 1/4 power.

It's a little backwards thinking really. Basically the lower power flash you can use, the sharper your images will be. Play with your other settings to get the highest f-Stop you can get, but keep that flash turned down.

Another little trick is to keep your lens pointed as perpendicular as possible to the plane of the dropping water. That way, the focus will be on the water the whole way down and not just where you focused.

Anyway, good luck. Water drops are really addicting, especially when you start getting it figured out.

-Rob

Ambrola

Don't use auto focus. Use manual focus and use a ink pen to set it. Just look through the camera and focus the drop when it hits the pen and don't touch it. Thats how I do it and it works great.

fishbait

Autofocus is useless for precise waterdrop and macro work. At the speed the drops occur, the lens is still trying to autofocus after the event is over. Use a tripod, use manual focus, and turn off any image stabilizer in the lens.

Here's a tip the 'dropheads' among us may find useful:

When setting focus for water drop shots, I place an NPT hose fitting in the pan and release several drop one at a time. As the drops fall, I reposition the fitting so the drops will fall into the open end. This is dead center. Then I simply focus on the fitting.

The different diameters of the fitting allow me to judge what DOF will look like at various focus settings. If I want the column in sharp focus, I focus on the hole at the top. If I want a splash ring to be in focus I use the wider part of the fitting at the bottom.

Any object could be used for focusing, but I find the different diameters of the fitting very useful.