Digital Camera World » water drop photography

Photo of the day: 3 July

samanthacliffe — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 07:00:10 +0000

Magic of Water by ‘ssobhdel’

“This shot was taken in my home with a special kit that synchronises the solenoid valves, camera and flashes. To make the water look colourful, I used red dye and guar gum.” – ssobhdel

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5 cool water drop photography ideas and 1 really simple set-up

jmeyer — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 15:28:30 +0000

Although it’s unlikely that Cartier-Bresson had water drop photography in mind when he talked about the decisive moment, his words ring true when trying to capture the split-second moment a water drop hits the surface below it.

There are several high-tech and costly techniques you can use to get consistent and repeatable water drop shots, such as using electronically activated valves to produce accurately timed drops, and movement triggers that will fire your flash, but it’s surprising just what you can achieve using much simpler techniques and kit that costs just a few pounds.

First, think about how you will create the drops themselves. There are a number of ways to do this, including creating a tiny hole in a suspended plastic bag or using an eyedropper. The most important thing is to ensure that the drops fall in the same place each time, and that the frequency is reasonably predictable. We used a syringe and a small piece of tubing attached to a stand.

You’ll also need a container for the drops to fall into. Any dish or tray will do, but the depth will affect the shape of the droplet, and if you want to capture the reflection of the splash it needs to be large enough to avoid including the edge in your shot.

You can also try changing the viscosity and surface tension of the water. A small amount of washing-up liquid or rinse-aid will lower the surface tension, while adding glucose or glycerine liquid will produce a thicker solution.

It’s easy to get a little hooked on water drop photography, so once you’ve got the basic set-up right be prepared to spend hours pursuing the perfect shot. Here are five techniques you can use to capture very different water-drop images.

5 photo ideas for creative water drop photography

Change your viewpoint
Positioning the camera almost level with the surface of the liquid allows you to capture more of the drop’s reflection for an arty look.

Before the splash
You don’t have to capture the splash to create stunning images. Capturing the water droplets mid-flight can also result in beautiful images.

Inject some colour
Adding a food dye to the liquid is an easy way to add striking colour. You can also try adding different colours to the drop and static liquids.

Create multiple drops
Once you’ve mastered single drops you can try to capture images of the collision between two drops, with amazing results.

Try milk instead
Due to the very different viscosity and characteristics of the liquid, using milk instead of water will produce softer shapes.

A simple water drop photography set-up

And finally, for those wanting quick results, here is our simple guide to capturing water drops in action. You don’t need costly kit to get impressive results:

Step 1: Create the drops
We used a syringe and some plastic tubing attached to a simple clamp-stand to produce our drops. It’s important that the drop falls in the same place each time, and a small 1ml syringe allowed us to control the droplets accurately.

Step 2: Think about lighting
Placing a piece of frosted glass behind the water, then lighting it with the off-camera flash, proved to be the easiest way to light our drops. The flash was fired using a radio trigger, and was set to 1/32 power manually.

Step 3: Camera settings
With the camera on a tripod we used manual focus and exposure. Some test drops were used to set the focus by placing a ruler in the position where the droplets fell, then carefully pre-focusing on this point.

Ripple effect: shoot abstract photography in the bath

jmeyer — Mon, 14 May 2012 11:16:10 +0000

Believe it or not the bathroom can be a great place for creative photography. Here we’ve captured the magical quality of water ripples, and combined them into a contemporary grid.

We created the ripples by simply dripping water from a soaked cloth onto the surface of (clean) bath water (for a different take on this, see our quick tutorial on photographing water splashes for dramatic effect). There’s plenty of other ways to make great ripples too, so it’s worth experimenting with different methods and heights.

The trick to capturing the ripples is to use off-camera flash placed at an angle to the surface of the water. Make sure the bath water is only a few inches deep, and use a smallish aperture, such as f/11, for a large depth of field (learn more about aperture with our free f-stop chart). This will ensure everything is sharp.

The high speed of the flash will freeze the motion of the ripple (if you like this, you might also enjoy our tutorial on how to shoot water drop photography at home).

You can process the images however you want, but for this project we felt that a split-tone effect suited the subject, and we were able to easily do this in Adobe Camera Raw.

Remember that cameras and water don’t mix, so be very careful, especially if you’re suspending your camera above the bath water, as we did.

Step 1: Get flash in the bath
Set up an off-camera flashgun to light the water from the side. This will help to capture sharp, clearly defined ripples. Switch to manual mode, expose for 1/200 sec at f/11 and experiment with the flash power to get a balanced exposure.

Step 2: The ripple effect
There are plenty of ways to make great-looking ripples from water drops. We soaked a flannel and gently squeezed it from a height of about three feet. This creates well-defined circular ripples that are easy to control.

Step 3: Make split-tones
Use Adobe Camera Raw to convert the images to monochrome using the HSL / Grayscale tab, then make the highlights yellowish and the shadows bluish using the Split Toning tab. Open the images in Photoshop and arrange them on a grid.

Photo ideas: amazing water drop photography

dcworld — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 11:24:59 +0000

Find out how to photograph water drops from our expert guide to water drop photography. Read the camera tips below for setting up a macro home photo studio, using your digital camera and editing in Photoshop to create fine art water drop photos.

If your portfolio is suffering from a lack of inspiring small-scale action photography then it’s time to start capturing amazing miniature water sculptures. As with most still-life photography, the success is in the preparation and gear set-up. Although there’s a fair bit of kit involved, you won’t need expensive high-speed strobes or technical shutter or flash triggering units. This can easily be done with an off-camera flash and cord plus a macro lens or extension tube.

Step 1: Set up a macro home studio for water drop photos

Predictably, water and expensive cameras don’t mix very well, so ensure you have a wide and level working area to set up your equipment and work safely. Make sure all the equipment is secure and aim to be in a shady or darkened room for the best possible lighting.

Flashgun:
Any brand of camera flash that has a Manual mode will do the job. Place it in a clear or neutral colour plastic bag to stop it getting splashed by the drips.

Off-camera cord:
Firing the flashgun (or a pop-up flash) from the hotshoe will look harsh. A cord will be required to place the flash closer to the subject.

Tripod:
It’ll need to be a comfortable height to work from and sturdy – both good traits for a tripod. In these pictures just micro-movements can throw the focus way off.

Macro lens:
If you have one, use it to focus super-close and increase impact. Alternatively, fit an extension tube to a mid-range zoom lens for the same effect. Extension tubes allow even closer focusing distances and work perfectly when zoomed in to around 70mm.

Remote release:
Using a remote-release cord isn’t essential but it will make it easier to fire the shutter unrestricted and will avoid wet hands touching the camera.

Clear glass and tray:
A clear tall glass filled with water and a clear or neutral colour tray to catch the excess liquid is essential to avoid unwanted colour casts tinting the image.

Bottle and pin:
To get small and steady drips, make a hole in the bottom of a quarter-filled plastic water bottle. Use a household pin to pierce a small aperture on the lowest part of the bottle to actually start the water dripping. Leave the lid on and pierce a small air hole in the top. This lets air enter the bottle slowly and avoids creating a vacuum so that the drips can flow out evenly.

Stand:
A purpose-made stand to hold the dripping water bottle is best but you might need to be resourceful. We used a pair of molegrips taped to a camera case. The large pair of molegrips hold the bottle while the small pair are clamped onto them and taped to the case.

Coloured card:
Backgrounds are vitally important to inject some impact into the pictures. The great thing is that they’re just cheap card from a stationers.

Step 2: Use these DSLR settings

Here’s how we’d recommend you set up your camera for water drop photography…
● Flash – switch the flash to Manual and set it to 1/16th full power to start.
● Focusing – manual focus is critical for sharp images.
● Exposure – use Manual mode to keep control over metering.
● Exposure mode – manual.
● Aperture – set it to f/22 for maximum depth of field and to avoid focusing errors.
● Shutter speed – to avoid ambient light select a shutter speed of around 1/200 sec.
● Drive mode – avoid guessing the timing and use Single shot.
● Quality – shoot in RAW format for best quality and greater latitude during editing.

Step 3: How to take the water drop photos

When you have your kit ready you can concentrate on the photography. Compose in upright format with the cup lip at the bottom of the frame. Don’t shoot from too high or you’ll get the cup in the shot. Remember that the close and shallow angle will make focusing crucial as the depth of field will be miniscule.

The freezing of action in this technique comes from the short blip of flash exposing the water rather than from the shutter speed or ambient light. This means that in-camera metering is redundant (use the aperture and shutter speed setting suggested above) and that you must rid the room of as much light as possible.

Place the flash below the camera angled upwards for a super contrasty lighting effect. After putting the background card close to the cup, you’re ready to take a test exposure and check the histogram. Specular highlights in the water should be clipped (falling off the right-hand side of the histogram) and shadows at the edge of the background should be black. If you need to adjust the flash power, experiment by moving it backwards or forwards. If you still need adjustments then use the output setting on your flash unit.

Get focusing spot-on for sharp drops

Line up the shot:
Lay a pen over the centre of the glass and aim the drip by moving the stand so that it hits the very centre of the glass.

Focus and check the result:
Manually focus on the pen where the drip is splashing and double check it on your LCD by zooming in.

Get the timing right
Pressing the shutter to catch the splashes is the easiest part. A remote shutter release will give you freedom to position yourself and get a better feel for the timing. As the drip hits, pause before firing the shutter to allow the water to rise and create an interesting shape. Keep the room dark and you should be able to see the shapes momentarily as the flash freezes them.

Too early:
A fraction of a second after the drop hits the water the initial splash has dissipated and the frame should be clear of stray drips. A nipple will form and begin to rise upwards

Getting there:
The rising nipple will form a column that can produce some cool shapes and imaginary figures. Experimenting with the height of the water drop can produce varying results.

Success:
Try to fire the shutter after the column has fully extended and as the surface tension of the water interacts with gravity. It’ll produce some wacky and almost symmetrical shapes.

Too late:
Quite literally a fraction of a second later and the event has passed. Even though it looks good as a suspended bubble above the water’s surface the impact and X-factor is lost.

Photoshop tutorial: turning water drops into fine art photos

1. Adjust Levels

Increase the contrast and give the images a little more bite using Levels. Click Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Levels. Use the Auto Levels button and watch the blacks become deeper and the contrast increase.

2. Crop

First select the Crop tool [C] and drag it across the whole of the image. Hold down [Shift] to constrain the size of the crop and position it over the part of the frame that you require, rotating it as necessary.

3. Duplicate

Before beginning to clone out the dust spots, create a new background Layer by dragging the Background Layer onto the Create New Layer icon or clicking Layer>Duplicate Layer. Title this Layer ‘Dust Spots’ for reference.

4. Clone

With the ‘Dust Spots’ Layer highlighted choose the Clone tool from the Tool Palette [S]. Select a soft feathery brush and resize the cloning area using the square bracket keys for a more precise diameter change.

5. Stroke

Select the whole canvas by pressing [Ctrl/Opt-A]. From the menu select Edit>Stroke. In the dialogue box choose a Pixel width of around 5 and choose black from the colour picker. Leave the Location to Centre and the Blending mode to Normal.

6. Canvas size

For the classy white border to sit beyond the small black border click Image>Canvas Size and choose a white background colour from the colour swatch. Click the Relative check box and enter another 7cm in each Width and Height box.

All images Ben Birchall

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