Water Drops

[rick55]

Ignition


Blastoff


Towering


Last Gasp


Inspired by Jeroen and by some of the images in Jim's album, I decided to try for some shots of drops of water. After quite a few false starts, I've got some that are at least good enough to ask, "What next? How can I make these better?"

The setup is the same for all. Canon 500D, EF-S 17-55 at 55mm, 1/60s at f/11, ISO 100. I have my speedlite 580 a little in front of the camera and just at the level of the water, set for manual 1/2 output, with a 1/4 blue gel. Thanks a million to Jim for the photo of his setup in his album: it helped me improve the lighting a lot. I also use white balance in PS to make it look bluer.

I'd like a little longer lens, to be able to fill the frame from farther away to make the DOF a little deeper, but my old EF 75-300 won't focus close enough to do better than the 17-55, and the 17-55 is much better optically. The crop on these shots before resizing is 3300 by 2100, which keeps about 2/3 in each direction, or 45% of the available area, so it isn't terrible.

Cheers,
Rick

[CNelson]

You did a great job....very interesting images....makes a nice series too.

Chuck

[Donald]

Inspired by Jeroen and by some of the images in Jim's album, I decided to try for some shots of drops of water.

And that's the wonderful thing about our little site here on the edge of cyberspace - the opportunity to be inspired by and learn from, others.

Not only are the images very, very good, but the fact that you took time to acquire the knowledge and skill that then allowed you to execute your idea, is, I hope inspiration to others. As has been mentioned in a couple of other recent posts and as I've been reading elsewhere in the past few days, it is not just a case of pointing a camera at something. It takes effort to master the craft.

[JK6065]

Hi Rick,
Good to see you had some inspiration from my work. I really like your series. I'm suprised to see that this series looks remarkably similar to my latest. I like the colours and everything looks very sharp.

If it where my photo's I would crop a little thighter. I als o would try a little lower point of view (if possible) and I would clean up the images a bit with a cloningtool to remove some speckles.

[rick55]

Thanks, Chuck and Donald. I get lots of inspiration here. I also got an R72 filter, but that hasn't worked out as well as I hoped, so far. I get exposures, but I think it's at best as Terry described it: "faux IR." I'm still working on that, though.

Thanks, Jeroen, I'll certainly try some lower angles once I get back from vacation. I did do some minimal work with cloning, but I mostly just removed obvious "defects," to try to minimize the possibilities for losing something subtle. But I'll try going a little farther, and see what I can do. And I agree, our two series look very similar. I like the framed sequence in yours and they're beautiful shots.

Cheers!
Rick

[Jim B.]

Rick,
Beautiful shots!Especially like the "crown".I agree with Jeroen,try to get a bit lower with the camera.Nice processing on these shots.
Jim

[rick55]

Thanks, Jim. I'll try some lower angles. You did us a huge favor by posting your setup in your album. As well as some shots to aspire to. I watched a video about it, but for some reason the positioning of the flash didn't get to me as a key element. For a lot of failed attempts, I had it behind or parallel with the camera, and too low, and it was really limiting things. When I saw your setup, the light came on (no pun intended).

Cheers,
Rick

[Dave Humphries]

Recognising that Jeroen's and Rick's were so similar (ignoring the colour for a moment), that'll be due to the water's viscosity being very similar.

Here's an idea for people to try - either add something to the water, or use another liquid with a different viscosity/properties, to get different splash shapes.

I used milk when I was doing it donkey's years ago.
Adding a TINY amount of washing up liquid (to water) will probably have the opposite effect.

Or is there a scientist around that can say my idea is unfounded

Anyone want to start a DRIP SPLASH Mini Competition

[rick55]

Different liquids are a good idea: I think you're right about the behavior, caused by both viscosity and surface tension. I'd expect viscosity would change the bounce-back, since I think a more viscous liquid would steal some of the energy. Surface tension would affect the drop that's thrown up.

Cheers,
Rick

[JK6065]

bassically the washing up liquid takes away a lot of the surface tension, which is exactely the thing that creates these towers. (I'm curious to see what happens when all the surface tension is gone). Also the depth of the water you're using effects your droplet. In this video form Discovery's Time Warp you can see how a droplet affects the water and vice versa. I expect a higher viscousity would have a similar effect since the thick liquid absorbs more energy.

[rick55]

That's a great video, thanks, Jeroen. I have lots to try when I get back in a week. With extremely low surface tension, I think the "coronet" would fragment, and that would lose energy, also.

Cheers,
Rick

[agaace]

Thanks for the video - awesome!

[JK6065]

it's the surface tension that trows the water up as a tower after the drop digged out the hole. I think the surface tnesion is also why you get the cornets and the splash when the drop hits the water. So bassically I wonder if really something happens with no surface tension and I doubt if less surface tension would look better.
Today I'm going to do some experiments with surface tension, so I'm curious.