Mini Competition #520

[Cambridge in Colour]

This is an open-themed competition that is open to all CiC members.

ENTERING. Add your image in a new post below. Make sure to change your post title to a name for your picture (click the "Go Advanced" button). We request that there be just one entry per person. For help posting images, go here.

VOTING. When this competition reaches 10 entries, a poll will be automatically added and any member may then vote. After 2 days, voting ends and the winner is determined.

Once voting begins, a new competition will be automatically started.

Good luck!

Note: Please do not request feedback, or make comments on other images, until after voting has closed as it could be unfair to other entrants.

PS: Make sure to also vote on the previous competition here.

[Sahil]

[KeithH]

[NoCard]

[MiniChris]

[LiseeMariee]

[Apo]

[Pjerry]

Perigueux, France by PjerryT, on Flickr

SOOC again.

[Lunhara]

[sleist]

[Shashin]

[Pjerry]

This wasn't really a competition. Astonishing Keith, what a very great capture. How did you manage this?

[FrankMi]

You have a walk-away winner Keith! Congratulations! OK, I just got to know, do the drops contain glycern?

[NoCard]

Amazing shot Keith, such clarity and colour.
A worthy winner! Congrats.

[KeithH]

Thanks for looking and commenting guys. I'm not sure where to post this reply so can I ask a Mod to move it as appropriate please.

Shooting droplet shots

It is a very old technique that I first tried some forty years ago and didn’t have a great deal of success with, however with digital it is so very much easier. Basically, find a nice blade(s) of grass with some lovely dewdrops or raindrops on them, place the flower just behind them, get down and personal with the ground and start snapping away.

The size of the bloom, distance between the bloom and the droplets and the size of the droplets are all crucial to getting a good diffracted image in the drops – as is the magnification of the lens setup and the flash angle.

To get an acceptable shot of the refracted images in the drops, simply focus on them. To get a finished result where the grass and drops themselves are in focus, then a series of shots, focussed at slightly different points that cover all the proposed image, are required. Then it’s off to the digital darkroom to use something like Combine ZP (Freeware) to carry out the focus stacking.

The rig I use is shown in this first photo and all these were taken last year. What I didn’t realise until I got down to check out the first shot was that I had forgotten my right-angle finder (which is essential for me) so please imagine it added to the setup.


Canon 5D, Sigma 105mm macro lens, Kenco extension tubes, Canon 430X flash, snoot made from a plastic milk bottle, paper towel diffuser and loads of duct tape!


This second photo is me just starting to struggle to my feet after realising I had forgotten the said R-A finder and my neighbour took the shot while I was moving, Never mind, it gives you the idea of what I mean by getting down and personal.



Sadly, with all my clumping around, I managed to knock all the drops off the grass I had picked out as most suitable so I had go on a search for another spot. Fortunately I found a nice clump of something (?) in a patch of unplanned and inappropriately situated flora (weeds) which served the purpose nicely. This third shot is the result of my efforts.



I am Britain’s answer to Agent Orange regarding anything horticultural, I grow old and can grow weeds but nothing else so I have to get flowers from various places, market stalls, garden centres, specialist growers etc and if I can’t persuade them to give me a couple of blooms for free then I buy them, this flower is called Alstromeria. Its fun to do but it can be very, very frustrating at times! I use a similar technique for shooting bugs but with them I consider a 5% success rate as being good! Note the height-of-fashion finger-tip-less gloves, excellent in cold weather.

Thanks to my neighbour for venturing out into the cold and damp to take the reference shots

I hope this inspires you to have a go.

Keith

[adunivan]

Keith, this was an awesome shot. Thanks for posting how you did it. Congrats!!!

[BJ Denning]

Another tutorial on water drop flower photography, by Steve Wall.