Stacked Rain Drops

garyt · December 3, 2007

Had a mixed bag of weather today; snow, ice, and a little rain. I took a few shots of the rain drops to practice stacking. I think they came out fairly well, except for the flash reflection. I'm defusing through a plastic milk bottle lined with two layers of the white foam my camera came in, and it generally seems to be a pretty good setup for all but the highly reflective insects. Any suggestions how to knock it down a bit for these drops would be appreciated from you guys that shoot these drops alot. Maybe an additional paper towel or two over the end?? Re-locate the flash to the side?? It's already too dark to play any more today. These shots were taken at ISO 200, speed 200, f11, and 0 FEC.

This one is a 5 shot stack.

This one is a 7 shot stack.

Comments welcome.

Skippy · December 3, 2007

garyt wrote:

Had a mixed bag of weather today; snow, ice, and a little rain. I took a few shots of the rain drops to practice stacking. I think they came out fairly well, except for the flash reflection. I'm defusing through a plastic milk bottle lined with two layers of the white foam my camera came in, and it generally seems to be a pretty good setup for all but the highly reflective insects. Any suggestions how to knock it down a bit for these drops would be appreciated from you guys that shoot these drops alot. Maybe an additional paper towel or two over the end?? Re-locate the flash to the side?? It's already too dark to play any more today. These shots were taken at ISO 200, speed 200, f11, and 0 FEC.

This one is a 5 shot stack.
This one is a 7 shot stack.
Comments welcome.

Hey there Gary, I see you figured out how to post again

Toning down the flash reflection is not an easy task.
I use defusers, but I also edit some extreme white patches out if I can,
especial on bugs, by cloning.

Brian might be the one to ask this question to,
he has his reflections down to a fine art

Nice work, glad you got to post them ..... Skippy

.

garyt · December 3, 2007

Thanks Skippy. I read through your tutorial and figured it out. It's just another way. Wasn't bad at all. I just couldn't understand how people were still posting cuz I was using the "manage attachment" radio button and not the buttons at the top. I got it now.

I am hoping that Brian responds somewhere along the way. He is the expert, and my inspiration (along with a few others). I've been working on my homemade diffuser for a while, and it works pretty good on the bugs, but water has a much higher reflection. I know Brian shoots through paper towels, I have seen his rigs. I just keep experimenting, and eventually some dawns on me.

Lord Vetinari · December 4, 2007

Like #1 - stack worked well,
#2 has got a lot of blotching on it normally caused by mis-alignment of the background.

Re the flash reflections think this mainly down to the angle of the flash and perhaps a bit of overexposure.
If you are shooting flash with very little close BG then it's equvalent to a dark background and it's worth trying to adjust FEC down 1 stop. Not sure of the shape your diffuser but a large head where the diffuser is seems to be an advantage - as you know I only use a single layer of paper towel on mine. I suspect because my off camera flash bracket arrangement keeps the flash head to the side and at an angle to the lens (ie not straight on to the subject) I get less flash reflection simply because the camera does not see it. I have tried my flash way over to the left of the camera lens pointing in at an angle of about 45' to the the subject and that way you get virtually no flash reflection on droplets (I actually didn't like that). So may be worth playing with flash angle.

brian V.

JetCrocodile · December 4, 2007

If I would need a wallpaper/background image for my monitor definetely would choose the secod image! Very nice!

garyt · December 4, 2007

Lord Vetinari wrote:

Like #1 - stack worked well,
#2 has got a lot of blotching on it normally caused by mis-alignment of the background.

Re the flash reflections think this mainly down to the angle of the flash and perhaps a bit of overexposure.
If you are shooting flash with very little close BG then it's equvalent to a dark background and it's worth trying to adjust FEC down 1 stop. Not sure of the shape your diffuser but a large head where the diffuser is seems to be an advantage - as you know I only use a single layer of paper towel on mine. I suspect because my off camera flash bracket arrangement keeps the flash head to the side and at an angle to the lens (ie not straight on to the subject) I get less flash reflection simply because the camera does not see it. I have tried my flash way over to the left of the camera lens pointing in at an angle of about 45' to the the subject and that way you get virtually no flash reflection on droplets (I actually didn't like that). So may be worth playing with flash angle.

brian V.

Brian--Thanks for the input. My diffuser is modeled after a snap-on Stofen. Very similar, and I have a bracket arrangement similar to yours, except I put the flash straight out over the end of the lens. I think I have enough length to move over to the side a bit and angle in, and will give that a try to see if it reduces the flashback a bit, or at least changes where the reflection is. I did take the 1st pic with FEC at -1 and it seemed a bit dark for me (especially with the black background). I don't play much with the f-stop much any more. I simply adjust the FEC to get the desired exposure, and it has been working fairly well. It saves a lot of messing around. Typically try to shoot around f8-f16 to get maximum DOF possible and avoid the whole stacking thing. But it is fun to play with. I still need the tripod to make pics for stacking, so I have been limited so far.

JC--Thanks for the nice comment.

Lord Vetinari · December 4, 2007

garyt wrote:

Brian--Thanks for the input. My diffuser is modeled after a snap-on Stofen. Very similar, and I have a bracket arrangement similar to yours, except I put the flash straight out over the end of the lens. I think I have enough length to move over to the side a bit and angle in, and will give that a try to see if it reduces the flashback a bit, or at least changes where the reflection is. I did take the 1st pic with FEC at -1 and it seemed a bit dark for me (especially with the black background). I don't play much with the f-stop much any more. I simply adjust the FEC to get the desired exposure, and it has been working fairly well. It saves a lot of messing around. Typically try to shoot around f8-f16 to get maximum DOF possible and avoid the whole stacking thing. But it is fun to play with. I still need the tripod to make pics for stacking, so I have been limited so far.

JC--Thanks for the nice comment.

Gary if it's modelled after a stofen it may be the front light emitting panel is a bit small. People seem to find things like lumiquest softbox diffusers more satisfactory. Assume you've seen the coke can diffuser I use all the time ? http://www.flickr.com/groups/macroviewers/discuss/72157594312315664/

Brian V.

patricia kay · December 4, 2007

Gary....

Love these...cant coment on the technicalities as i am just learning but i know what i like!!!

Patricia..........:D

garyt · December 4, 2007

Brian, thanks for the additional info. I have studied your diffuser a bit. Just bought a softbox to try. I'll let your know how it works out.

Pat--Thanks for the comment. They're a lot of work, but very fun to do. Each one gets better as you practice. The technicalities will work themselves out, based on everyones comments, I'm sure. It's an ongoing learning curve for me, that I just keep working on, but it's nice to see the improvements as you go. I do a lot of experimenting on the way.

banjon · December 4, 2007

Lord Vetinari wrote:

Gary if it's modelled after a stofen it may be the front light emitting panel is a bit small. People seem to find things like lumiquest softbox diffusers more satisfactory. Assume you've seen the coke can diffuser I use all the time ? http://www.flickr.com/groups/macroviewers/discuss/72157594312315664/

Brian V.

Cool. My camera doesn't have a hotshoe, only a popup flash. I hate the harsh shadowing and brightness. After some reading, I was looking around the house for something I can use as a diffuser, hoping to make the flash somewhat useful.

I found a small TUMS bottle that pops right onto the flash snuggly. The thick milky plastic softens the hard flash. I removed the stickers on the bottle, and taped a small piece of poster board to one side. By doing so, I notice two different types of light. The first with the blocker facing me, acts like a diffuser with descent light. When I turn it around, the blocker places the light above the subject and also banks of the ceiling causing the room to light up very softly. Since its a bottle, I can add inserts - I added foil, which added even more forward light. I tried pieces of colored paper which lit the entire room that color (pink, green, and yellow).

I tried shots of myself, and the I feel I can probably use the diffuser and produce some decent results.

The TUMS dispenser:

Using Direct Flash in my homemade light box.

This is using only a halogen light through tracing paper

banjon · December 4, 2007

These came out great. I was looking into how to do this. Some said you need a focus rail? Is that what you used?

Thanks
Rich

garyt · December 4, 2007

banjon wrote:

These came out great. I was looking into how to do this. Some said you need a focus rail? Is that what you used?

Thanks
Rich

Rich-- Thanks for the comments, and also the diffuser shots. You've got quite a variety of looks there. I use a tripod when I take pictures to stack. Some of the better guys can do it hand held (I think they all use MPE's though, where as I used a 100mm lens and a full stack of tubes), but I'm not there yet. LordV has a tutorial that I followed to do the stacking (http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=61316). The pics take some practicing, and the program does the rest.

Lord Vetinari · December 5, 2007

banjon wrote:

Cool. My camera doesn't have a hotshoe, only a popup flash. I hate the harsh shadowing and brightness. After some reading, I was looking around the house for something I can use as a diffuser, hoping to make the flash somewhat useful.

I found a small TUMS bottle that pops right onto the flash snuggly. The thick milky plastic softens the hard flash. I removed the stickers on the bottle, and taped a small piece of poster board to one side. By doing so, I notice two different types of light. The first with the blocker facing me, acts like a diffuser with descent light. When I turn it around, the blocker places the light above the subject and also banks of the ceiling causing the room to light up very softly. Since its a bottle, I can add inserts - I added foil, which added even more forward light. I tried pieces of colored paper which lit the entire room that color (pink, green, and yellow).

Nice one

- heard of people making a small hole in a ping pong ball and using that. Just be careful you don't overheat the flash though..
Brian v.

banjon · December 5, 2007

Lord Vetinari wrote:

Nice one - heard of people making a small hole in a ping pong ball and using that. Just be careful you don't overheat the flash though..
Brian v.

Thanks - I was thinking of that, I took several photos in a row and checked the flash, no signs of heat. Maybe its the size of the bottle compared to the ping pong ball. The bottle is about 3 inches in height, so its possible there is more air flow. I thought of adding a small hole in the bottom of the containter to allow heat out, but then again, its a smaller flash, may not heat up like a hotshoe flash might.

I will keep that in mind when using.