"Lights, Camera, WATER, Action!" My 1st Attempt at this...

[Todd Ovick]

Uberbloke,


nice creativity...the water almost looks like shards of ice falling


Todd

[nvitalephotography]

Ok I know Im a little late to the show, but I wanted to try this out too. I think I will be doing a lot of this now. Its really fun. Now I just need to pick up some extension tubes so I dont have to crop.





50d, 17-55mm, 580exII. f 11, 1/250th, flash


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[Todd Ovick]

nvitalephotography,


Nice one! I like the somewhat separation of the blue and red....


How did ya do it? Let me guess, clear pan with blue source underneath and flash bounced of a red source?


Todd

[nvitalephotography]

Thanks!


I actually just used dye. blue water and dripped in a drop of red. bounced a flash off a white background. the colors stayed separated rather well.


Nick

[conropl]

You guys inspired me to give it a try. It was a lot of fun. Here are a few from my first attempt:


7D with 55-250mm f/4.5-5.6 @ 250mm, f/5.6, 1/250 sec and 580EX-II Flash... The meat thermometer was good idea.


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Pat

[btaylor]

There's some good stuff here guys! It's a pretty tricky thing to perfect that's for sure. You can go all out with digitally timer controlled solenoids attached to IR or sound triggers but I think it's a lot of money to spend on something I think might get old quickly. I had a play with it a while back and I think half the fun was trying to get a good shot while doing the whole thing by hand! Here's a shot I got of a collision a while ago - it was a yellow water/milk drop with a bit of window cleaner added dropped into blue coloured water. I think I had a blue gel on the580 exIIas well.


Canon 40D, Canon 70-200mm f/4L IS + Kenko extension tubes @ f/14, ISO 200, 3 sec exposure, 580 EX II from behind at 1/128th power



Yellow and blue collision by Ben__Taylor, on Flickr


Cheers, Ben

[Todd Ovick]

Ben,


Awesome!!


Would you say you got this collision from using a longer shutter speed?


I have to try this...


Todd

[btaylor]

Hi Todd,


The shutter speed really has no bearing on these types of high speed shots. The idea is to shoot in relative darkness so that the only light reaching the sensor is that given off by the flash, so no ambient light should filter into the shot. I think the light duration from a 580 EX II at 1/128th power is in the order of 1/40000th of a second, much much faster than the maximum 1/8000th of a second you can achieve with a shutter of most modern DSLR's. This is the key to stopping the drops. I just keep the shutter open long enough for me the open the shutter, squeeze the water out of the dropper, fire the flashes etc then close the shutter.


To get a shot of a collision such as this (from my relative inexperience) you need to have 2 drops coming down into your base in quick succession. As the first hits the water is creates the spoutat the bottom. Then as the second drops comes down it collides with thespout of the first, creating the "crown" at the top.It's quite interesting the differentshapes that can form. You need at least 2-3cm of water in your base to get the good spout, but that's about it.


It also helps having a small amount (a drop or two) of a detergent based liquid in your solution that you're dropping. I found window cleaner was best because it doesn't bubble up as much as something like dishwashing detergent, so you're not constantly popping of blowing bubbles out the the frame. It's alsogood toadd milk to your solution (around 50/50 water and milk) as this increases the viscosity of the liquid, helping hold it together a bit more. This alsoshows up the difference in colours more prominantly.


I started using just one flash from behind and eventually hadtwo 580 ex II's going. One directly behind with a large diffuser (frosted glass works really well) and often a coloured gel to illuminate the water base. The second was usually positioned at about 45 deg to the side with a tight grid on it just to illuminate the top of the spout/ drop. Both dialed down to either 1/64th or 1/128th power to help freeze the motion.


It's a lot of hard work doing things by hand, which is probably why I stopped playing around with it. Don't expect a fantastic success rate either, I think I got 2-3 shots like this out of around 350 shots when I took that one. It's interesting though, and you can get some great images.


Here's another shot from the same session showing the collision between the two drops.


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Hope this helps a bit anyway, have fun!


Ben.

[Todd Ovick]

Ben,


Thanx for the info. I am going to try this...need to gather up some more tools i.e. eyedropper, ect.


Yes, it does sound like a bit of work but the results really pay off, as they did for you.

It also helps having a small amount (a drop or two) of a detergent based liquid in your solution that you're dropping. I found window cleaner was best because it doesn't bubble up as much as something like dishwashing detergent, so you're not constantly popping of blowing bubbles out the the frame. It's alsogood toadd milk to your solution (around 50/50 water and milk) as this increases the viscosity of the liquid, helping hold it together a bit more.

This probably explains why i get so many misc. bubbles when doing this in the kitchen sink while dripping water out of the faucet.


Todd

[bob williams]

Ben, Like you, This artform is really not what i want to spend my time and money on. But for any budding photographer, it is a great drill to teach lighting, high speed, flash etc. But I have to admit I am jealous; I filled up two 16 gig cards but never managed to get the "collision" as you did. I got some pretty good "drop shots" but, I always missed the collision-----Great job, great photo-----Love the color and lighting as well.


Bob