Oil on water

That is something!! Love the psychedelics!

ChasWG wrote in post #9964082
Wild stuff man! Thanks for posting these and all your techniques used. I may have to give this a try sometime. What f-stop are you shooting these at?

Cheers Chas, these were shot at around f7.1 BUT I'm using an mpe-65 so that equates to something like f28!! I'd suggest experimenting to find which aperture gives you the best DOF and sharpness.

Flo wrote in post #9964095
That is something!! Love the psychedelics!

Cheers Gail, reminds me of those trippy oil filled slides that were big in the 60's / 70's??

burntpixel wrote in post #9942632
very cool! got a setup shot?

Set-up video on YouTube

othomas wrote in post #9965385
Set-up video on YouTube

What a legend Bryan is, I wonder if he saw my article in the January edition of Practical Photography magazine, how cool?? Slightly complex and risky setup though, I don't fancy balancing a casserole dish full of oil and water anywhere in my studio... you can get the distance between the background and the water surface simply by using a deeper container + more water!

Couple of extra tips:

Make sure your camera / lens is parallel to the water surface (I use a hotshoe spirit level) otherwise the narrow DOF will mean it's nigh on impossible to get the entire frame in focus
Float a piece of paper on the waters surface to get a rough focus set if you're having problems

Carl