How to photograph......

[mattd85]

Hi all,

I am just wondering how i would go about shooting water drops? I have seen loads of thread with water collisions, water splashing ofF pencils etc and i would like to try my hand at it.

What sort of equipment would i need as a minimum and maximum?

Thanks for all your help.

Matt

 

[Gunso]

A good enough light source so that you can shoot with a fast shutter speed would be bare minimum.

Here's the setting one guy used while taking shots of water drops
Shutter Speed: 1/320
Aperture: f/4
Focal Length: 22mm
ISO: 200

 

[On the Huh]

http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=208624

 

[D90cam]

A tripod too?

 

[TCR4x4]

A good enough light source so that you can shoot with a fast shutter speed would be bare minimum.

Here's the setting one guy used while taking shots of water drops
Shutter Speed: 1/320
Aperture: f/4
Focal Length: 22mm
ISO: 200

Ideally you want a SLOW shutter speed and flash. The chances of catching the exact right moment with a shutter that fast is very slim. Plus at f/4 your DOF will be tiny, so critical focusing much be achieved, again which with water is nigh on impossible.

 

[BenUK]

I found this animated .gif quite helpful on Wikipedia

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/77/Shutter_speed_waterfall.gif

(If you look at the bottom right it shows the shutter speed).

Hope this helps.

 

[Tringa]

Have a look at this video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwExpFDUC9Y

Dave

 

[BarryG]

A tripod too?

Not needed if you are looking to freeze the water - I would expect a shutter speed of at least 1/100 which should be fine handheld.

 

[terryt]

Never tried this myself but Digitalrev uses a flash to freeze the water rather than using a fast shutter to catch the droplets http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VKXPQ3bbc8

 

[-aurorae-]

I used a mixture of info to produce these.

A big black tray filled with water, large white card slanted behind tray to bounce light back on to water.

Tripod
ISO 200
Flash changed to around -1 (only have on camera flash so I tried to make a funnel to aim the light towards the white paper background)
Shutter 1/250
f/10
Hardly any light in the room - I used a lamp to switch on, put a pencil in the water where the drops would land, manually focused on the pencil, turned the light off and removed the pencil.
Made a hole in the bottom of a bottle and used continious shooting as I squeezed the bottle varying how many drops fell.

Maybe not perfect shots, but I was pleased with a first attempt.

Good luck

 

[mata.morrison]

I did this a while back. I used my modest setup filled the sink and used the tap to drip slowly.

Came up with this


Water Droplets by M+M Morrison, on Flickr


Water Droplets by M+M Morrison, on Flickr

Got about 12 keepers out of 200ish

Fun but you need patience.