Some Water Droplets

[Cathus]

hagz,

it's not the shutter speeds which freezes the movement, it's the speed of the flash duration, in the above cases something like flash at something like 1/12,000 to 1/20,000.

In actual fact the shutter speed was something in the region of a second, i.e. shutter held open on B (bulb), drop drops, flash fires, close shutter

nbgemeini,

the aperture is something like f22 or f16, pretty high. The lens is a Tamron 90mm Di macro.

[Cutter]

Garry I love the shots apart from two things, your borders are so heavy for such delicate shots, perhaps just reduce them in size or make them more refined. And is it not possible to get rid of the bowl in the background that the liquid is in?
Only my opinnion Garry
ps what flash units are used?

[Cathus]

Mark,

the border is a standard that I use for all my shots when posted to the internet. I don't have borders on any prints, it's just a thread which ties all my work together.

Re the bowl, this is because it it's a cake or flan dish which is white. I need to find something glass or suitably shaped that doesn't show the lip. A suitable platform would be better as it is set up on a director's chair & balanced on a cardboard box in my shed, hence why I didn't fill the dish to the top with water, one nudge & everything spills.

The flashes are Lumopro 160, manual flashes

[Cutter]

Originally Posted by Cathus

Mark,

the border is a standard that I use for all my shots when posted to the internet. I don't have borders on any prints, it's just a thread which ties all my work together.

Re the bowl, this is because it it's a cake or flan dish which is white. I need to find something glass or suitably shaped that doesn't show the lip. A suitable platform would be better as it is set up on a director's chair & balanced on a cardboard box in my shed, hence why I didn't fill the dish to the top with water, one nudge & everything spills.

The flashes are Lumopro 160, manual flashes

Thanks for the info Garry, cracking shots anyway

[ste.g]

Great images, tried some water drop shots over the weekend as well. My results weren't as good as this though. Going to try your technique later of keeping the shutter open and firing the flash. Can't get the water to mushroom like yours any suggestions?

[Cutter]

Originally Posted by ste.g

Great images, tried some water drop shots over the weekend as well. My results weren't as good as this though. Going to try your technique later of keeping the shutter open and firing the flash. Can't get the water to mushroom like yours any suggestions?

cathus has specialised equipment for capturing the splash Im sure he will point you the way

[Cathus]

ste.g,

yep as mark says, I have a Cognosys StopShot which allows you to trigger the flashes at very precise timings.

Basically, the water droplet goes through a movement detector which sets the flash to fire at predetermined microseconds later, which means you can capture any moment in the life of the water droplet by knowing when it will hit the water.

You can do it by eye without equipment but it is extremely hit & miss, it's a question of judging when to fire the flash. If you set everything up & prefocus in good light, then turn the lights down you can put the camera on bulb mode, drop the water & guess when to fire the flash

[MattUK]

They're really cool Cathus. Have you tried it with paint? The consistency should prove interesting to experiment with.

Also, check this out: http://www.petapixel.com/2010/10/02/...g-sound-waves/

[Cathus]

Matt,

amazing photography. Not tried it with paint yet.

I did notice in that vid that they were using the Cognisys StopShot also. I guess they used the sound trigger to fire the flash

[MattUK]

Either that or they linked it to the trigger for the high frequency sound burst.

Although less precise, you could either flick underneath whatever is holding the paint, or increase the scale of the experiment and drop something in a pot of paint and shoot the resulting splash...