Popping water balloons...

A new thing to shoot, water balloons. Hang them over the tub, pop them with a pin, shoot and see what happens...


The preliminary attempts...


01

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Very nice.

How do you trigger a flash?

With wireless triggers, I use YongNuo CTR-301P triggers that I got on eBay.

I thought that you used some kind of IR or sound activated triggers.

Excellent work capturing exact moment when balloons burst.

No, I wish I had a StopShot or similar, would make a lot of what I shoot a lot easier. I go by luck, try to start shooting when I'm about to pop the balloon and hope I catch something good. So far it's been working, but the last string of attempts I was about 3 for 10: I was catching the water at the bottom of the frame instead of getting it right as the balloon popped.

Great pics, like #6 a lot, you can see the fissure that makes the balloon explode.

I was trying to get some pics the same way than you a couple of weeks ago, tried first with a laser trigger but couldn't get the right synchronization so I decided to go manually.

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Cool. What kind of problems were you having with the trigger? I've always thought it'd be great to have a StopShot, laser triggers, etc., but I guess they have their own set of quirks that add to the difficulty of a shot.

katodog wrote in post #13666901
Cool. What kind of problems were you having with the trigger? I've always thought it'd be great to have a StopShot, laser triggers, etc., but I guess they have their own set of quirks that add to the difficulty of a shot.

StopShot is an intervolometer that is precise and consistent. I've used it on thousands of shots with no difficulty whatever. The only difficulty comes from operator error and not understanding the unit.

The key is using the proper trigger for what you are trying to do. Using a sound trigger on water balloons is not the best method.


Here's a shot of a half filled ballon being shot with a pellet. Take a look at what can be done with a StopShot on my threadhere.

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I've seen your threads, good stuff but not something I can do with my budget...

katodog wrote in post #13666901
Cool. What kind of problems were you having with the trigger? I've always thought it'd be great to have a StopShot, laser triggers, etc., but I guess they have their own set of quirks that add to the difficulty of a shot.

Yes, fishbait has a very cool stuff, that milk drop is incredible, someday I am going to get one of those intervalometers, for now I am not able to spend $400 getting the stop shot, I was thinking in buying but changed my mind, I have a simple laser trigger from ebay that works pretty well, I think I am too lazy to set the laser beam properly to get the right synchronization to trigger the flash at the right moment .

This is what I got from ebay
http://www.ebay.com …2a145b5ea7#ht_2​573wt_1344

Cool, thanks for the link. Looks like I'd need a cable for the flash huh?


Tried something different today, had my daughter throw the balloons onto the deck. out of probably 15 balloons this is the best of what I got. Almost every shot was either missing the splash or she threw the balloon out of frame. Two times the balloon just bounced off the deck and flew into the grass...

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katodog wrote in post #13668259
Cool, thanks for the link. Looks like I'd need a cable for the flash huh?


Tried something different today, had my daughter throw the balloons onto the deck. out of probably 15 balloons this is the best of what I got. Almost every shot was either missing the splash or she threw the balloon out of frame. Two times the balloon just bounced off the deck and flew into the grass...

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Water Balloon 008 by Ed Durbin (Katodog), on Flickr

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Water Balloon 009 by Ed Durbin (Katodog), on Flickr

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Water Balloon 010 by Ed Durbin (Katodog), on Flickr

Yes, you do, what I did is get a $2 80N3 shutter release from ebay and made and adapter using only 2 channels since the trigger device has a 3.5mm mono input and I had to cancel the remote shutter autofocus channel . There is another sound trigger that looks to work well also. Here is the link:

http://www.ebay.com …2a18016a09#ht_3​587wt_1344

I have a cable from one of those cheapo eBay 80NC from a previous "flop at making your own trigger" attempt, with the cheapo laser trigger and sound trigger I could easily put something useful together. Thanks again for the info.


Few more...

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these are all fantastic, love that last one in the first set.

Thanks...

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