How do I shoot a water wave with a black background?

B://

I need to take a photo to a wave produced in water but the trick comes when I need the background of the wave to be black, completely black.
The thing is that I need some nice and clean highlights at the top of all the wave's crests. I need to be very descriptive with the photo, by now what they told me, is that they want to photograph the birth of someone's conscience. Pretty odd right? hahaha, but it's going to be so cool because we are going to do some very good compositions with complex concepts, great great, hope someone can help me out here, anyone with that experience.

If you can, maybe you can post me an example of what I'm talking about, would be so helpful for me, thank you

Byron M.

wxwax

Light the water from the side and/or underneath and/or above. Make the brightness differential great enough that when the water is properly exposed, the background is black.

JBurt

B:// wrote:

I need to take a photo to a wave produced in water but the trick comes when I need the background of the wave to be black, completely black.
The thing is that I need some nice and clean highlights at the top of all the wave's crests. I need to be very descriptive with the photo, by now what they told me, is that they want to photograph the birth of someone's conscience. Pretty odd right? hahaha, but it's going to be so cool because we are going to do some very good compositions with complex concepts, great great, hope someone can help me out here, anyone with that experience.

If you can, maybe you can post me an example of what I'm talking about, would be so helpful for me, thank you

Byron M.

Are you doing this in a tank and generating you own waves?
Whitecaps or rolling waves?

You will need:
Blackbackground in tank.

Tank needs to be large enough to be able to backlight the water without spill on the background.

You will have to play with light placement to get reflections correct.
You could even gel the lights for some kool effects.

Maybe even lighting from underneath. Either in the water or a lucite tank and lighting through that thu the bottom or sides. So many combinations for so many different effects.

Sounds like a fun project.

Let us know what you settle on.

ziggy53

B:// wrote:

I need to take a photo to a wave produced in water but the trick comes when I need the background of the wave to be black, completely black.
The thing is that I need some nice and clean highlights at the top of all the wave's crests. I need to be very descriptive with the photo, by now what they told me, is that they want to photograph the birth of someone's conscience. Pretty odd right? hahaha, but it's going to be so cool because we are going to do some very good compositions with complex concepts, great great, hope someone can help me out here, anyone with that experience.

If you can, maybe you can post me an example of what I'm talking about, would be so helpful for me, thank you

Byron M.

What would be extremely helpful is an artists rendering of what you want to do. If an artist can't manifest the concept, it's probably not viable. I don't think a sketch will do, but it doesn't have to be extremely detailed either.

If it is the type of wave you would envision surfing,

You need to consider:

The viewers angle with regard to the wave?
The way the lighting works against the inside of the wave, as well as the wave crest?



If it is the kind of wave pattern you see generated by a wave generator in a tank:

What is the period of the wave?
What amplitude?
How many peaks visible?
You mention a black background, but do the peaks need to be white?
Will the wave propogate evenly and without interaction?
Circular or linear?
Does the wave dissipate or disappear?

("Death of conscience" makes a better song title. Then again, I was always partial to, "I think we're all Bozos on this bus." )

ziggy53

JBurt

Real waves?
ziggy -
If he is going to try and use real waves he is going to need massive specialized lighting.

Or, be really lucky or patient to get exactly what he wants. He might be able to capture the wave he wants then Photoshop in a black background.

I come from the technical side of the movie industry so I tend to want to maintain more control over a shot like that than happenstance.

But he hasn't gotten back to us with any specifics so we are just guessing at this point.

ziggy53

JBurt wrote:

ziggy -
If he is going to try and use real waves he is going to need massive specialized lighting.

Or, be really lucky or patient to get exactly what he wants. He might be able to capture the wave he wants then Photoshop in a black background.

I come from the technical side of the movie industry so I tend to want to maintain more control over a shot like that than happenstance.

But he hasn't gotten back to us with any specifics so we are just guessing at this point.

Actually, I'm thinking that if he wants a waves like those produced in a "ripple tank" with white caps and a pure black background, his best bet is using computer generated images (CGI).

You can position the light source more accurately and even where a physical camera would "see" it.

Note the ripples here:



ziggy53

JBurt

ziggy53 wrote:

Actually, I'm thinking that if he wants a waves like those produced in a "ripple tank" with white caps and a pure black background, his best bet is using computer generated images (CGI).

You can position the light source more accurately and even where a physical camera would "see" it.

Note the ripples here:



ziggy53

Ah yes, early James Cameron.

Computer effects is probably the most cost effective. There are some great water effects plug-ins available for PS. We'll have to see what he is actually looking for.

ziggy53

JBurt wrote:

Ah yes, early James Cameron.

Computer effects is probably the most cost effective. There are some great water effects plug-ins available for PS. We'll have to see what he is actually looking for.

Yep, like these Freeware:

http://www.redfieldplugins.com/filterWaterRipples.htm

Dee

Minor Gripe.... (slightly OT?)

ziggy53 wrote:

Yep, like these Freeware:

http://www.redfieldplugins.com/filterWaterRipples.htm

From the redfield site:

Have you any plans to release Redfield Plug-ins for Mac OS?

Sorry, we regret that we do not have any plans to port our plug-ins to the Mac OS.

I wonder how "windows" users would feel if I linked to all these neat plug-ins and filters and freeware that only worked on the Mac? :

And when they went to the site, happy to download some cool neat free stuff, they discovered they wasted their time? <sigh>

JBurt

Dee wrote:

From the redfield site:

Have you any plans to release Redfield Plug-ins for Mac OS?

Sorry, we regret that we do not have any plans to port our plug-ins to the Mac OS.

I wonder how "windows" users would feel if I linked to all these neat plug-ins and filters and freeware that only worked on the Mac? :

And when they went to the site, happy to download some cool neat free stuff, they discovered they wasted their time? <sigh>

I feel your pain Dee. :cry That has happened to me tho probably not as often as a Mac user.
We all have our crosses to bare. Afterall, us PC users have to constantly reboot. :nah

ziggy53

Dee wrote:

From the redfield site:

Have you any plans to release Redfield Plug-ins for Mac OS?

Sorry, we regret that we do not have any plans to port our plug-ins to the Mac OS.

I wonder how "windows" users would feel if I linked to all these neat plug-ins and filters and freeware that only worked on the Mac? :

And when they went to the site, happy to download some cool neat free stuff, they discovered they wasted their time? <sigh>

Then again, I've found Mac centric PhotoShop sites that had no support for the Windows side. It makes one want to be awfully mad at someone, but who?

Let's see, who wrote PhotoShop and who designed it so that plug-ins "could" be incompatible between platforms?

Who should we really be mad at?

Can you say "Adobe"? Can you say "John Warnock"? Can you say "Charles Geschke"? (Gesundheit)

Would people that really give a flying poo about their customers do such a thing? (Kinda makes you think Adobe is a division of Microsoft, doesn't it?)

Lately, I've been trying to use "The GIMP". Admittedly support is pretty sad and development is slow, but then, it's remarkable just how usable it is. Whadaya want for nothin'?

Ah well, pretty soon you'll be able to buy a Mac that also runs Windows. That should fix everything! "It just works."

<img src="https://us.v-cdn.net/6029383/emoji/rolleyes1.gif&quot; border="0" alt="" >

ziggy53

B://

Thanks everyone for writting me back, the thing is that I want to actually take a photograph of a water wave created by several means. I was thinking about a home-made generator, maybe not, we will see.
No cgi please, hahaha, I tried with a lot of programs and nothing really good came out from them, I mean PS can do things with filters but nothing really fancy, and plug-in's, I have them all I guess, hahahaha, I want a good shaped water wave in a black background, the problem right now is the illumination, so please help me out, but thanks for all the ideas about doing a render, thank you very much, see you around.

Byron M.

JBurt

B:// wrote:

I want a good shaped water wave in a black background, the problem right now is the illumination, so please help me out, but thanks for all the ideas about doing a render, thank you very much, see you around.

Byron M.

Good shaped doesn't tell us a whole bunch. You still haven't given us any information on what type of wave you want to photograph. All you're going to get is general lighting info until we have a better idea what you are trying to accomplish.

It depends on what kind of wave you want, you may not want to use water. You may want to use a liquid with a different consistency, or put a little soap in for foam, or...

There are many ways to accomplish your goal. How you are going to do it will depend on how much time, money, and creativity you have.

We can give you ideas but you are the one that is going to have to work it out.

Actually, re-reading the responses, you got some pretty good ideas to start playing with.

B://

JBurt wrote:

Good shaped doesn't tell us a whole bunch. You still haven't given us any information on what type of wave you want to photograph. All you're going to get is general lighting info until we have a better idea what you are trying to accomplish.

It depends on what kind of wave you want, you may not want to use water. You may want to use a liquid with a different consistency, or put a little soap in for foam, or...

There are many ways to accomplish your goal. How you are going to do it will depend on how much time, money, and creativity you have.

We can give you ideas but you are the one that is going to have to work it out.

Actually, re-reading the responses, you got some pretty good ideas to start playing with.

Thanks, and you are so right, I haven't been so specific, I'm now looking out for a picture, probably a render from someone, hahaha, that looks like the idea I have in mind, anyhow, I don't want a classic shoot from the top that makes the waves look so flat in a certain way.

I want the angle to be like this one:

04.binary.wave.jpg

Note: This is just a vulgar version of what I want, please don't pay attention to the binary black hole system in the center of the wave, hahaha, but I mean, something like that, with a lot of highlits at the top of the ripples (crests, yes, that's the name of them, hahaha, as valley is the bottom of the amplitud).

Maybe that can help a lot more to what I want to express

JBurt

That should be fairly simple to accomplish.
A black tub

Directional lighting - you'll have to play with the lighting to get the effect you are looking for.

Drop an object in to create the ripples.
Or
Consider using a thicker viscosity liquid (ie oil, paint, or a thin paste) and a way to agitate it.

You could use a dark colored liquid and use reflected light off of the crests of the ripples.

ziggy53

B:// wrote:

Thanks, and you are so right, I haven't been so specific, I'm now looking out for a picture, probably a render from someone, hahaha, that looks like the idea I have in mind, anyhow, I don't want a classic shoot from the top that makes the waves look so flat in a certain way.

I want the angle to be like this one:

...

Note: This is just a vulgar version of what I want, please don't pay attention to the binary black hole system in the center of the wave, hahaha, but I mean, something like that, with a lot of highlits at the top of the ripples (crests, yes, that's the name of them, hahaha, as valley is the bottom of the amplitud).

Maybe that can help a lot more to what I want to express

What you just showed is a double vortex, which is far more complicated. You also identified a potential source of help, since this image came from CalTech.

Even though you resist CGI, that is exactly how this was created, and still the best way to proceed. I suspect that you could find the author of this image and they could provide something fairly easily, in almost any practical resolution, and for a fraction of what you might spend to reproduce this optically, and theirs will look better.

ziggy53

JBurt

ziggy53 wrote:

What you just showed is a double vortex, which is far more complicated. You also identified a potential source of help, since this image came from CalTech.

Even though you resist CGI, that is exactly how this was created, and still the best way to proceed. I suspect that you could find the author of this image and they could provide something fairly easily, in almost any practical resolution, and for a fraction of what you might spend to reproduce this optically, and theirs will look better.

ziggy53

, I agree your way would be much easier but it seems he wants a physical solution.
Two entirely different direction and both feasible.

B://

JBurt wrote:

, I agree your way would be much easier but it seems he wants a physical solution.
Two entirely different direction and both feasible.

You're right, I want to do it physically, I mean, we can construct the whole render structure and put all the lights where we want to, but it's not going to look so real you know, we want this for a composition we are creating, something like Storm Thorgerson's work. The thing is that we need all the elements of the composition to be real photographs, even though Storm sometimes uses CGI. But we don't want to use them, but yes, that's the way we want it, to be the most real thing.

Thank you everyone

Byron M.

JBurt

B:// wrote:

You're right, I want to do it physically, I mean, we can construct the whole render structure and put all the lights where we want to, but it's not going to look so real you know, we want this for a composition we are creating, something like Storm Thorgerson's work. The thing is that we need all the elements of the composition to be real photographs, even though Storm sometimes uses CGI. But we don't want to use them, but yes, that's the way we want it, to be the most real thing.

Thank you everyone

Byron M.

I would suggest you use cgi to mock up what you want to do physically.

An example: This image is lit from two directions. You can experiment digitally with different scenarios then set them up in real life.

B://

JBurt wrote:

I would suggest you use cgi to mock up what you want to do physically.

An example: This image is lit from two directions. You can experiment digitally with different scenarios then set them up in real life.

Are those real waves? or are they emulated?
You're right, I should work on a render to see what I want physically, thank you.

Byron M.

JBurt

B:// wrote:

Are those real waves? or are they emulated?
You're right, I should work on a render to see what I want physically, thank you.

Byron M.

5 minutes with the Redfield plugin ziggy linked to earlier. Just a quick and dirty example for you.
Black background with a textured overlay layer merged.
I applied the plugin and played with it for a couple minutes.

Edited to add: It's the first time I used that plugin. So it can't be that difficult.

Have fun

ziggy53

JBurt wrote:

I would suggest you use cgi to mock up what you want to do physically.

An example: This image is lit from two directions. You can experiment digitally with different scenarios then set them up in real life.

Nice image JBurt!

ziggy53

JBurt

ziggy53 wrote:

Nice image JBurt!

ziggy53

Thanks ziggy. Thanks for the link.

B://

Naaaah, I think I'm going to use those plug-in's, hahahaha, I thought it was going to be easier, even though we didn't have all the needed tools to do it, and we did all we could, but it was not enough, and the pictures aren't even close to what we wanted. We think we are going to try the render instead of the physical thing, maybe later... we are going to try to do it again, but thanks, the CGI technique is the most viable resource right now, here's what I did with the wave, once again there we're nothing to work with, I mean lights and stuff, only the camera and my vivitar flash, hahaha, sorry we're poor .

IMG_1195(resized).jpg

JBurt

B:// wrote:

Naaaah, I think I'm going to use those plug-in's, hahahaha, I thought it was going to be easier, even though we didn't have all the needed tools to do it, and we did all we could, but it was not enough, and the pictures aren't even close to what we wanted. We think we are going to try the render instead of the physical thing, maybe later... we are going to try to do it again, but thanks, the CGI technique is the most viable resource right now, here's what I did with the wave, once again there we're nothing to work with, I mean lights and stuff, only the camera and my vivitar flash, hahaha, sorry we're poor .

IMG_1195(resized).jpg

Hey, at least you gave it a try. CGI will probably be easiest. Don't give up on the real thing though. You might be surprised at what you come up with.

Good Luck