I saw a cool photo of a single drop of water dropping, well, into water, and thought it'd be cool to try that tonight. I've done this sort of thing a lot, but always with colored gels and all that stuff. Never just a pure, simple, water.
For the set up, I just had the glass filled all the way up with water. As in, all the way it could be filled until it was pouring over a bit. Then, I put a single strobe behind it and off the left. Backlighting water is key, that way you don't pollute your backdrop with light, and the water has that wonderful glint. If you light from the front, the light going straight through and you end up lighting the background, not the water.
I shot at f10 with a macro filter on so that I could get close to the water, but still have a somewhat reasonable depth of field. As it turned out, shooting at f10 made me use such a high power on the strobe that the action was not all the way frozen! The higher the power on the strobe, the longer it takes for the strobe to deliver that power, and so the freezing action of the strobe goes down. Usually, you can get away with it, but I guess water just moves too quick for it! Luckily, the water I wanted to freeze and to be in focus is exactly that. Part luck, part skill to do that.
I focused using Live View, and roughly eye balled it in. I was just dropping drops of water off my fingers, so it was going to be a guessing game anyway. After about 10 shots of failure, I got two back to back that were great! Actual little drops! Perfect.
In Lr, I converted them to B/W and upped the clarity a whole bunch to really bring out the contrast and what not in them. I wanted the drops to be sharp, to jump off the screen. With how sharp they actually are, I think they definitely accomplish this. The lowest drop is just pin sharp, love it. I also cropped things down to a 1:1 ratio. I just felt like this cropping would help the photo, minimizing distractions and what not.
That's all, I'm falling asleep so enjoy!
See you tomorrow!
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