A waterdrop tutorial

[Johny]

Hi all,
Since we all love our toys and discover new ways to use them i thought that i should give you a short
tutorial for taking nice close-up pictures of waterdrops splashing in water.

I'm not using any fancy stuff for my setup, only some stuff that i could find at home.

This is what i used for my setup:

1. A big mirror (to reflect the flash down into the bowl)
2. A box of orrange juice (just to get some colors, had it under the bowl)
3. Dishcloth (to squeeze some drops from)
4. Tripod
5. A Boule set (only to lean the mirror against, because it's heavy)
6. A glassbowl with water
7. Canon Pro90 (Use whatever you got)
8. Canon Speedlight 420EX (can use internal flash, but it's weaker)
9. Canon close-up lens 500D

http://www.akerlund.f2s.com/p90/tut1.jpg

I set it all up like this, and the orrange juice box is only there to get some nice colors in the final picture.
Try different colorful things to have under/behind the bowl to get different colors.
Put something in the bowl where you want to have focus, zoom in and let the camera focus and lock it
(push manual focus once on pro90)

http://www.akerlund.f2s.com/p90/tut2.jpg


Now set the camera in TV mode and put 1/250 or faster... you won't get anything faster than 1/250
regardless what you set it to because the camera can only sync the flash to 1/250.
Use the dishcloth and with one hand squeeze some big drops in the area
where you have zoomed in and where you have focus, and with your other hand push the button on the camera.

http://www.akerlund.f2s.com/p90/tut3.jpg

Prepare to take A LOT of pictures to get the nice ones...
Play with it, change colors under the bowl, zoom out slightly, take some more,
move the camera to another angle... and so on...

Good luck splashing away again and again :o)
Please send me some links to your pictures.

Regards / Johny Ã…kerlund jakerlund@home.se (mailto:jakerlund@home.se)

http://www.akerlund.f2s.com/p90/tut9.jpg
http://www.akerlund.f2s.com/p90/tut8.jpg
http://www.akerlund.f2s.com/p90/tut7.jpg
http://www.akerlund.f2s.com/p90/tut6.jpg
http://www.akerlund.f2s.com/p90/tut5.jpg

[James]

Hi Johny,

Thanks for sharing your tips with us. I really enjoyed your photographs.

[Rick]

This has to be one of the coolest tutorials Ive ever seen anyone post. How truly cool of you to put this up here. Great images and thanks, Cant wait to play around a bit with it myself.

Best Regards

Rick

[Pekka]

That's a great tutorial! I think I'm on my way to get a macro lens... Have you tried any other liquid than water (Coke, Vegatable Oil, Beer, Wine)? ;)

[JCDoss]

Pekka beat me to it, but I was going to suggest trying mixing liquids to get your color. Using the OJ box is a good idea, but I wonder what the results of, say, dripping food coloring into water would look like? The patterns created by mixing liquid of different colors should be spectacular!

[psinke]

Great tutorial! I wish I could find some more of this things on the net...
I tried it with an analog camera, Canon EOS3000 with Sigma macro- 'filter' screwed on an Sigma 70-210 lens.
I used direct sunlight for lighting and was able to shoot with shutterspeeds of up to 1/1000 s and aperture 9.5 (Kodak Color Gold 400ASA), and shutterspeed 1/250 s at aperture 13.
If it worked out I'll post some scans tomorrow.

Addendum: I've received my first results, with shutterspeed 1/250 - 1/350 s, and they are all blurred. All my hopes are on the 1/1000 s pictures....

[psinke]

Finally, a few pictures have worked out. Shuttertimes of 1/1000 s worked, achieved by using a lot of light and a 400ASA film.

Johny, did you use the flashlight to 'freeze' the images, or was it just the shuttertime that did the trick?

Sorry 'bout the scans, they're not so good:

http://www.geocities.com/patrick_sinke/img/druppel1.jpg

http://www.geocities.com/patrick_sinke/img/druppel2.jpg
If they're not visible, check:
http://www.geocities.com/patrick_sinke/img/druppel1.jpg and
http://www.geocities.com/patrick_sinke/img/druppel2.jpg

[BrianN]

Hello Johni

Your experiments with the water drops triggered some very old memories about similar experiments with milk drops, and further experiments with stopping bullets or inflated balloons at the moment of bursting. The two articles involved go back to the magazine "Modern Photography" and are dated 1/85 and 7/86 but the information they contained could well shed some light on the technique. One article mentions that the duration of the flash in most flash units si 1/1000 of a second but "At their closest auto-exposure distance, or when set on minimum variable-power steeing, the duration may drop to a mere 1/40,000 sec. This will arrest virtually any human and most animal actions. Even hummingbirds' wings can be stopped at that speed if you'11 accept a touch of blur." The article, by James Bailey, goes on to say to set a variable power model at 1/16 or less power. He also mentions using film of ASA 200 or higher. In his article, he goes on to describe a high speed sync adaptor which is triggered by sound.

The second article was "Shoot the classic milk drop in mid plop." This refers to the classic photo 'made famous years ago by Dr. Harold Edgerton. This article described a 'light trigger' which was a beam of light that when broken by the milk drop, would trigger the camera and flash. The milk was dropping into a very thin puddle of milk which caused the 'crown' effect.

I think that your flash was actually the light being recorded because camera's high shutter speed was actually not long enough for much room light to register even though it was 1/250 compared to the possible 1/10,000 of the flash. This would explain why your experiments without flash but at a shutter speed of 1/1,000 were not a success. The camera speeds of normal cameras are just not fast enough to stop the action. All of Edgerton's work was with strobes they are nothing but our present day flash units.

You have done some great work that I greatly enjoyed. Sorry it took so long to post a reply, but it took a little while to dig out the old articles. Maybe this will give you some more ideas.

BrianN

[psinke]

Thnx for your information, Brian. This is very helpfull

I found out day before yesterday that my Sunpack flashlight has flashtimes between 1/500 and 1/20.000 (!!) seconds. This just has to do the trick I guess.

The part about the 'crater effect' is also worth the try.

[BrianN]

Johny

The 1/20,000 of a second is probably fast enough for anything except possible a speeding bullet, unless of the .22 caliber size which has a muzzle speed of about 1,000 feet per second. But then, photographing a bullet in flight raises a lot more problems than wether your flash is fast enough, don't you think?

Good luck, be careful, and when will we see some more photos?

BrianN

[Sharon D]

Interesting stuff! BrianN, can you tell me where I could find one of the remote triggers, and do you know if they are expensive? I've done a Google search and can not find one. TIA!

[tim]

Good job on the searching Sharon, you found a 5 year old thread! :) I've seen light and sound triggers at my local electronics store, and you can probably get them on ebay too. B&H may have them, my quick search didn't find any.

[Sharon D]

Thank you, Tim! When I noticed how old the thread was I didn't think anyone would respond. After searching Google for a while I did find a site that sells them but they are considerably more than I expected. Well not really, but I was hoping for something less expensive. $465 at www. woodselec.com. I found it by entering into the Google search engine infrared beam camera triggering. Again, thanks!

[Grimnar]

haha
No wonder the images did not load.

[Jaymz]

Interesting stuff! BrianN, can you tell me where I could find one of the remote triggers, and do you know if they are expensive? I've done a Google search and can not find one. TIA!

I just finished up a project, a couple of days ago, a homemade circuit that triggers a flash off a microphone. I have yet to take any shots with it. I have already designed the circuit for basically the same thing using a phototransistor for a trigger.

The microphone trigger cost me about $20 to build.

[PineCone]

originally posted 5 years ago and it's still helping novice photographers like me... generosity truly is timeless .. keep the wave of goodness flowing :) thank you...

i couldn't view the photos though... is that an error in my connection? or the photos are no longer available?

[PhotosGuy]

I just finished up a project, a couple of days ago, a homemade circuit that triggers a flash off a microphone. I have yet to take any shots with it. I have already designed the circuit for basically the same thing using a phototransistor for a trigger.

The microphone trigger cost me about $20 to build. Post them?

[Boxer_kidd]

I don't have #'s 8 and 9. Will I still be able to get the same affect?

[fivefish]

I posted a thread about a week ago, where I did the same thing...

Sample photos on the link below:
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=211988

[Boxer_kidd]

I posted a thread about a week ago, where I did the same thing...

Sample photos on the link below:
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=211988

Wow that is REALLY cool.

[ChrisBlaze]

can we get this update with pictures, Im very interested on how to do this.

[EWek11]

can we get this update with pictures, Im very interested on how to do this.

I just saw an episode of Wired Science that demonstrated how to do this using a microphone as a trigger (like in the POTN link above). I think this method may be a little simpler.
http://www.pbs.org/kcet/wiredscience/story/68-high_speed_photos.html

[great_ww]

^nice video for experimenting with my new EOS ...
the sound-triggered flash is quite a brilliant idea... :)

[abiel_upt]

Please check some of my work. It takes some time to setup but it is enjoyable.

To trigger the pictures, I used an infra-red slot sensor for the first picture and a laser pointer with a photo transistor for the second picture.


Please check some other pictures http://www.universaltimer.com/gallery2.html

[PhotosGuy]

Nice work! Welcome to POTN!

[Cromfel]

Hello everyone! I just had to try this thing out and here we have traditional Finnish beer Koff provided trough 40D and 17-85 lens.

I have been lurking around for a while and finally bought my self a camera so Im happy to join the big family of POTN! <3

[Cromfel]

And 2 more that I wanted to show. What I used was the inbuilt flash and table top lamp. Would have been nice to have got more light but I tried this so spontaniously. Also I only used manual shooting as I dont have remote button yet nor any triggering devices. Just had to set up the droplet paper cup to proper distance to "sync" with my reflex (Paper cup on another stand with needle hole). Any feedback would be appreciated as I just started digging into photography :o

[rainstr]

And 2 more that I wanted to show. What I used was the inbuilt flash and table top lamp. Would have been nice to have got more light but I tried this so spontaniously. Also I only used manual shooting as I dont have remote button yet nor any triggering devices. Just had to set up the droplet paper cup to proper distance to "sync" with my reflex (Paper cup on another stand with needle hole). Any feedback would be appreciated as I just started digging into photography :o

Nice pics! Perhaps a bit more depth and/or zoom on the water (point of interest)? I really have to try this technique :)

[narlus]

this could be the oldest post i've ever seen.

[[Hyuni]]

wow this is awesome!
instead of rigging up a timer, which is awesome, why don't you just shoot in bursts?
I'm going to give it a try when I finish making my makeshift lightbox.

[Cromfel]

Nice pics! Perhaps a bit more depth and/or zoom on the water (point of interest)? I really have to try this technique :)

Something like this? This is only crop of the original tho (Since the forum software shrinked the previous ones)

[René Damkot]

this could be the oldest post i've ever seen.

Probably right from the start of POTN :D
Still nice however ;)

[tonylong]

I agree! I'm thinking about pouring myself a glass of beer!

[FOX2PRO]

Probably right from the start of POTN :D
Still nice however ;)

Wow, how far are people looking back in the archives.

[JOEinSD]

I shot these when I first got my camera XTi. =] All I used was a clear bowl sitting on a CD. The CD is what gave off the colors. And of course, the flash was fired.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i49/Joes06tC/Photog/Water/8.jpg
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i49/Joes06tC/Photog/Water/7.jpg
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i49/Joes06tC/Photog/Water/6.jpg
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i49/Joes06tC/Photog/Water/5.jpg
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i49/Joes06tC/Photog/Water/4.jpg
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i49/Joes06tC/Photog/Water/3.jpg
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i49/Joes06tC/Photog/Water/2.jpg
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i49/Joes06tC/Photog/Water/1.jpg

[chauncey]

Does "interesting and neat" go together...regardless, I like them. :D

[Cromfel]

Whoa that CD trick is nice! I had some decoration led lights under my cup for some neat effect but didnt really work ;D

[Grimage]

Nice ideas for these images. It is always nice to see people helping each other. Thanks mate even if it is an old post.

[Jon Foster]

Wow, we haven't done any water drop pictures for a few years. I wonder if I still have my old shots? I'll take a look for them...

Jon.

[alwaySleepy]

Great tutorial. Been wondering how to do the "water drop splash" shot. Thanks!