Glittering Water Jar Thingy

So long story short, I ended up with a fish tank full of water and glitter on the kitchen table tonight... oh and there was a mason jar with water and glitter in it too that I was madly shaking and taking upside down pictures of under water.

It was an interesting evening...

Let's back track a bit and give some set up history.

Step 1: Get a fish tank...I got a 20gallon, but smaller would be fine too.
Step 2: Put tank in light cube box thing. (the white box used for product photography
Step 3: Fill tank with water
Step 4: Acquire glitter and mason jar
Step 5: Fill jar with glitter and water. Mixture up to you.
Step 6: Set up two speed light pointing at the back and sides of the light box. This turns it into one giant light source, which you  need.
Step 7: Photograph away!

Quick picture of the set up. This is from the view of the camera. You can see how the bottom of the water layer thingy (meniscus?) reflects the light and turns into one giant mirror. I shot up at this, and used it to create a surreal back drop/setting for my glitter jar.

For shooting, I had the camera on a tripod to keep it aimed at the same place for consistency at least on that scale. Then I shook the jar a lot to get the glitter going, then quickly tried to put the jar in the water where the focus plane was. Most times I was unlucky, but I got some good shots out of it. It comes down to half luck and half skill, you need to sacrifice accuracy on jar placement over speed to catch the glitter before it settles. It's a balance.

For settings, I shot at f/5.6 to keep the background nice and smooth, then at 1/200 to kill ambient light. The strobes were at 1/16 power, so way up there for that f stop. But they're bouncing and going through water so it worked out I guess.

That's about it for shooting thoughts....I guess it wasn't as complicated as I thought! Just setting it up took a long time!

Editing was really simple. The lighting was almost spot on, so I just tweaked a few things and it was good. Cropping and rotation was a big thing though, I picked the angles that put the jar in an orientation that didn't really make sense given the surroundings. I like the effects. I mostly just did a little clarity and shadows adjustment, nothing much other than that.

Here's my favorite one, and the rest come at the end.

See you tomorrow!