Another round of water drops

[BluewookieJim]

Since I got my Cactus v4 wireless triggers in, I figured what better time to try another round of water drop shots. Silly me, I quickly forgot how hard it is to focus these shots.

Anyway, I had my Canon 580EX II set up about 75% left of the camera position, set to 1/8 manual power, 35mm zoom. My 100mm Macro was mounted on my 20D, tripod mounted of course.

Here are a couple of my favorites:
http://photos.kodanja.net/img/v8/p240048725-4.jpg

http://photos.kodanja.net/img/v8/p118065908-4.jpg

Here is a quick shot of the setup:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3565/3407893245_e48cdec1df.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/kodanja/3407893245/)

Here is a link to the rest of the gallery, if anyone is interested:
http://photos.kodanja.net/drops2

[Zelichan]

Wow, those are really cool shots. I hope to do something that cool one day.

[BluewookieJim]

Wow, those are really cool shots. I hope to do something that cool one day.

I said the same thing the first time I saw some water drop shots. This is only the 2nd time I really attempted to do them. The focusing is the hardest part with this setup. There are some other setups you can see here that make getting the focus nailed a bit easier. Other than that, a tripod, a shutter release, a speedlight, and some patience are all you really need to do get started with these kinds of shots.

[jgrussell]

The focusing is the hardest part with this setup.Focusing is much easier when you put something tall and thin (a nail, a screw) into the water so that the drop hits it, and then use LiveView to focus on that. When your manual focus is just right, remove the item and fire away.

[silvrr]

Great colors. Im going to have to try this again. What did you use to set your focus?

[BluewookieJim]

I know the process. I have a 20D, hence no live view possible.

My faucet head is not conducive to hanging a pencil /screw or something... If you look at the setup shot, you'll see I have on of those fancy Moen faucet heads. The Nozzles (many, many of them, are angled about 45 degrees from level. The water accumulates, and then drips from some point near the very back of the faucet head. That point changes based on the volume of the flow.

My process right now is to focus first so the back rim of the glass is in clear focus, then focus so the front rim is in focus, then from memory try to split the difference. It doesn't help that my LCD is about the size of a nickel, so verifying that I do indeed have to correct focus is yet another challenge.

This would be a lot easier with an old fashioned faucet head.