Non insect macros anyone?

Few more... back to water but changed up the angle a bit...

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...and the last couple from todays series...

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tuffty wrote in post #18478092
My current setup is based on the controller kits from a company called HiViz... the drip controller and flash trigger come in kit form and the setup looks like this...

Splash controller (left) and flash controller (right)

I have limited room in my loft/office (still part way through conversion) so the rig is as big as I can make it...

I am planning on making a better jig to be able to position my flashes in the limited space I have...

I have also been playing with the nozzles as the drops were inconsistent... the nylon nozzles come with the HiViz valves but have read they can lead to inconsistency so added a small piece of brake pipe which seems to have improved things...

Last night I used a clear pyrex bowl rather than the tray and back lit as before in the flash configuration in the pic above... bit happier with the results this time and used a bit of yellow food colour in the drop fluid...

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Need to play with side lighting too but waiting on some more frosted perspex to diffuse the flashes plus I need to modify the rig to allow me to flexibly position the flash guns on the side...

I haven't had much chance to play with this setup as yet and I seem to be constantly evolving it... I have plans to build another drip controller that will allow multiple valves to be triggered individually... the HiViz setup will trigger up to three valves but only simultaneously... the new controller I have in mind will allow me to use a different colour per valve and alter the timing for each one... I can still use the HiViz flash controller though

<tuffty/>

Thanks for sharing this, did you ever try their DIY kits or any other DIY methods?

How easy are these kits to use?

TIA

gks wrote in post #18481909
Thanks for sharing this, did you ever try their DIY kits or any other DIY methods?

How easy are these kits to use?

TIA

I haven't tried any of the other kits... Most of the other kits on the market were quite expensive and I wasn't prepared to invest too much at this time not knowing if it would be something I would retain interest in...

The HiViz kits appealed as the complete setup with one valve worked out to be cheap considering the feature set (even after import duty etc) and because it was in kit form it meant I could revisit my youth a bit and assemble the electronics (which is a lot harder with my now much older eyes lol)

The HiViz supports three valves but... you have no individual control over each one so you can't dial each in to account for any subtle differences in the setup... I found that initially non of the valves would drop a single 'drop' at the same time even when meticulously aligned and levelled up... you would need to physically adjust the height to 'tune' which makes the rig a lot more complex so for now I have stuck to one valve..

The controller will release up to three drops but doing this (in my experience) is simply not reliable... I spent a lot of time trying to dial it all in one drop at a time... got a perfect two drop collision but then introducing a third drop seemed to throw all that out the window (I was only trying to make the 3rd drop visible in the frame rather than try anything too fancy at this time...)

I gave up with that for now and spent more time on the mixture... there is not a lot of info about it on the web... plenty of posts eluding to the 'secret' recipe but nothing conclusive... plus actual effectiveness is also dictated by the drip hardware (gotta love physics)... I tried a few different mixes with varying degrees of success but each mix meant I had to recalibrate as the viscosity effected the timing of the drops... I found I had to increase the size of the drops to get them to even release from the valve.. this of course altered the dynamics which meant dialling back in again...

The other issue I had was dialling the flash controller in... the HiViz multi trigger 3 has a coarse and fine adjustment dial... you need to dial in initially with the coarse dial then tweak with fine... in reality the coarse is very coarse... I literally only moved it a hair and it made a huge difference an the fine tuning didn't have enough in it to pull it back so it was quite a juggle..

I now plan to have a go at building this...
http://www.dropcontrol​ler.com/

Parts wise its quite cheap... you can control all the valves separately and accurately too

The more expensive kits do all this too I believe...

I need to spend a bit more time with the mixes... the milk shots suggest that a similar viscosity would net decent results with water...

<tuffty/>

tuffty wrote in post #18482419
I haven't tried any of the other kits... Most of the other kits on the market were quite expensive and I wasn't prepared to invest too much at this time not knowing if it would be something I would retain interest in...

The HiViz kits appealed as the complete setup with one valve worked out to be cheap considering the feature set (even after import duty etc) and because it was in kit form it meant I could revisit my youth a bit and assemble the electronics (which is a lot harder with my now much older eyes lol)

The HiViz supports three valves but... you have no individual control over each one so you can't dial each in to account for any subtle differences in the setup... I found that initially non of the valves would drop a single 'drop' at the same time even when meticulously aligned and levelled up... you would need to physically adjust the height to 'tune' which makes the rig a lot more complex so for now I have stuck to one valve..

The controller will release up to three drops but doing this (in my experience) is simply not reliable... I spent a lot of time trying to dial it all in one drop at a time... got a perfect two drop collision but then introducing a third drop seemed to throw all that out the window (I was only trying to make the 3rd drop visible in the frame rather than try anything too fancy at this time...)

I gave up with that for now and spent more time on the mixture... there is not a lot of info about it on the web... plenty of posts eluding to the 'secret' recipe but nothing conclusive... plus actual effectiveness is also dictated by the drip hardware (gotta love physics)... I tried a few different mixes with varying degrees of success but each mix meant I had to recalibrate as the viscosity effected the timing of the drops... I found I had to increase the size of the drops to get them to even release from the valve.. this of course altered the dynamics which meant dialling back in again...

The other issue I had was dialling the flash controller in... the HiViz multi trigger 3 has a coarse and fine adjustment dial... you need to dial in initially with the coarse dial then tweak with fine... in reality the coarse is very coarse... I literally only moved it a hair and it made a huge difference an the fine tuning didn't have enough in it to pull it back so it was quite a juggle..

I now plan to have a go at building this...
http://www.dropcontrol​ler.com/

Parts wise its quite cheap... you can control all the valves separately and accurately too

The more expensive kits do all this too I believe...

I need to spend a bit more time with the mixes... the milk shots suggest that a similar viscosity would net decent results with water...

<tuffty/>

Thank you very much for such a detailed answer

tuffty wrote in post #18482419
I haven't tried any of the other kits... Most of the other kits on the market were quite expensive and I wasn't prepared to invest too much at this time not knowing if it would be something I would retain interest in...

The HiViz kits appealed as the complete setup with one valve worked out to be cheap considering the feature set (even after import duty etc) and because it was in kit form it meant I could revisit my youth a bit and assemble the electronics (which is a lot harder with my now much older eyes lol)

The HiViz supports three valves but... you have no individual control over each one so you can't dial each in to account for any subtle differences in the setup... I found that initially non of the valves would drop a single 'drop' at the same time even when meticulously aligned and levelled up... you would need to physically adjust the height to 'tune' which makes the rig a lot more complex so for now I have stuck to one valve..

The controller will release up to three drops but doing this (in my experience) is simply not reliable... I spent a lot of time trying to dial it all in one drop at a time... got a perfect two drop collision but then introducing a third drop seemed to throw all that out the window (I was only trying to make the 3rd drop visible in the frame rather than try anything too fancy at this time...)

I gave up with that for now and spent more time on the mixture... there is not a lot of info about it on the web... plenty of posts eluding to the 'secret' recipe but nothing conclusive... plus actual effectiveness is also dictated by the drip hardware (gotta love physics)... I tried a few different mixes with varying degrees of success but each mix meant I had to recalibrate as the viscosity effected the timing of the drops... I found I had to increase the size of the drops to get them to even release from the valve.. this of course altered the dynamics which meant dialling back in again...

The other issue I had was dialling the flash controller in... the HiViz multi trigger 3 has a coarse and fine adjustment dial... you need to dial in initially with the coarse dial then tweak with fine... in reality the coarse is very coarse... I literally only moved it a hair and it made a huge difference an the fine tuning didn't have enough in it to pull it back so it was quite a juggle..

I now plan to have a go at building this...
http://www.dropcontrol​ler.com/

Parts wise its quite cheap... you can control all the valves separately and accurately too

The more expensive kits do all this too I believe...

I need to spend a bit more time with the mixes... the milk shots suggest that a similar viscosity would net decent results with water...

<tuffty/>

Thanks a lot for the detailed info and taking time to explain this!!. That drop controller looks quite descriptive will check if I can take a DIY project.

Maldon Sea Salt. These crystals are pretty broken up but hopefully, their pyramidal shape is still apparent. I've had this box of salt for some time now and it looks like I need to reorder.

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a grain of rice.

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Not quite macro but shot with the 100mm IS L macro when I had it...

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@katodog, these are really cool. How are they done, if you don't mind sharing?

Well, the link to a thread is in my sig, however I made the thread back when most of the setup stuff was on Photobucket. Since Photobucket turned to runny snot over the years and I got sick of the site, a lot of the photos are now gone. I'll have to dig through old photos to find the setup shots, but basically it's a subwoofer with plastic on it. I use one or two flash with triggers, and just snap the shutter while music with bass is going through the speaker.