High Speed Water Photography - 5 tips

[terri]

High Speed Water Photography

submitted by: Josh Jones (TPF member skiboarder72)

High speed water photography is one of the most difficult types of photography. Nailing the timing, focus, and lighting within a time frame that your eye cannot process can be very difficult. The results are simply amazing. Since your eye cannot freeze time, things such as water, explosions, and chemical reactions become instantly interesting when the moment is frozen in time.








Here are five tips for getting great results with high-speed subjects:

1) Use a fast shutter speed - This is pretty common sense but the faster the shutter speed the more likely that you will rid the picture of all motion blur. You may have to increase your ISO to allow the use of this shutter speed in darker situations. I recommend at least 1/250th of a second for water droplet pictures.

2) Using a flash - A flash is great because it can fire a beam of light that only lasts a tiny amount of time. The extra light from the flash will help allow the use of a higher shutter speed. Trying experimenting with an off camera flash, or a bounce flash for more natural lighting. High wattage lighting setups can be very helpful if you are working in a controlled environment. Basically the more light on your subject, the better.

3) Use manual exposure mode - This is about the only time that I use the fully manual mode on my camera. For shooting things such as water droplets, you need to control the shutter speed, depth of field, and flash output independently. By using a very stopped down aperture, such as f/22, you can get the depth of field needed for the entire water droplet to be in focus. You will need to set your shutter speed manually to something very fast, and you will need to control your lighting output to match your other parameters.

4) Adjust your focus settings - Getting the focus right in these shots is one of the most difficult things about them. A use of a small aperture helps by increasing the depth of field (and thus your margin of error). Many cameras cannot auto focus fast enough to catch a water droplet in mid air. Most just end up focusing on the background. If you have a magic camera that can auto focus so fast it can catch a single droplet midair, please send me an email. For everyone else, you may find that it is easier to switch to manual focus when you know how far away your subject will be. Once you have the focus set properly, then all you need to do is nail the timing.

5) Take a lot of shots - Unfortunately this is a type of photography that demands a lot of trial and error. Nailing the timing perfectly is very difficult. Many of my shots are either taken too late, or before the droplet enters the frame. Adjust your focus area, depth of field, and shutter speed to see what works best for your setup.

The results will be worth it!

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[whitemore55]

Good post and also useful. It will be very helpful who want to be a professional photographer.Thanks for sharing. I will really remember the tips.

If you get any this kind of tips or information please don't forget to share.

[Olga_pv]

Thank you for the tips, I am running away to try this

[Bynx]

There are also a few things to consider when creating the setup. For instance, the height of the dripping water to the bowl. The depth of water in the bowl. How fast the drops are apart. Having a slow drop rate will give clean columns as the example shown. If the drops are closer together then there is a chance of a collision between the rising column and the next drop creating a fantastic umbrella look. This umbrella look has been very elusive to me but I keep trying. This is a common shot I did this morning with a slow drop rate. Controlling a faster drip rate I find difficult. You almost want the water to come pouring out in a stream. As to focusing manual is the only way to go as mentioned. What I do is keep the water level below the height of a AA battery. Then I place the battery in the dish directly under the drip path. When the drip is right on the middle post of the battery I can then focus on that spot. Take away the battery and you are right in focus. Having a small fstop like f14 and the DOF will cover the height of the column if you happen to be shooting down on the column.

[90AWDSM]

I also have been trying to get the Umbrella Drop and have no luck in capturing it.

[Bynx]

Here is a drip cycle from a faucet.

[tevo]

Nice thread, very informative! I will probably try this out sometime tomorrowww

[CyberPhotography]

Probably the most creative thread here ..can you tell please a few tip on lighting?my lighting is always bad when i try this

[tevo]

Probably the most creative thread here ..can you tell please a few tip on lighting?my lighting is always bad when i try this

^^This! How would one go about lighting water... >__>

[Olga_pv]

As for me, I failed

I couldn't catch the column and I wonder how to do it, from 90 shots I caught it only once, and it was out of focus... Bynx wrote about manual focus, so I should use it instead of AF... What about shutter speed? I used 1/1000, maybe slower better? With flash or without? I did with flash.

And why everybody has very beautiful colored water? Is it Photoshop or the bowl or what?

I really want to do it and i want it nice, but how?

[Drake]

Playing with water is always fun. Any tips on backgrounds in bowl droplets?

[Compaq]

Even I has managed some droplet shots! :P Didn't have a flash, though, and my setup was pretty amateur !


dråpe_7 by Anders Myhre Brakestad, on Flickr


dråpe_1 by Anders Myhre Brakestad, on Flickr

[Bynx]

A flash is recommended for that bright short burst. I used the built in flash and it works fine. For a shutter speed I used 1/250 sec. In sync with the flash, and slow enough to catch the movement of the falling ball of water so you can see a bit of action. Thats the small white trail as the drop falls downwards. You can go with a faster shutter speed but then you will have to compensate for the light and go with a higher ISO causing noise. You CANNOT use autofocus because there is nothing for the camera to lock onto in time as the drops fall. Once you have manual focus set up the rest is easy. What I do to catch the action is watch carefully the drop as it starts to fall from the ziploc baggie. Shooting when its in the air so by the time your human reaction has come into play and the shutter is released, the flash goes off, hopefully in that fraction of a second the drop has fallen and you capture a portion of its cycle. It takes a while to get the rhythmn but its easy after that happens. You can almost pick what you want, a crown, a column, a column with drop, etc. You might even try it with a prop such as a spoon. A background can be anything. For the colorful look I taped up some hologramic christmas paper. And the simplest thing was just dripping milk onto a dark dish. Have to wipe the dish after each drop. Messy. By the way when dripping and your lens is close, be sure to clean it often.

[Bynx]

Compaq I can see by your first pic your shutter speed was slower than 1/250 due to the trail on the bottom of the 3 little balls of water flying up in the top right of your pic. All in all a nice capture. You just marginally missed the column of water. Better luck next time. For water color I used whatever I have around, printer ink or food dye. Covering the flash with colored plastic works too. The water reflects whatever is in front of it like hanging up xmas paper or colored material.

[Olga_pv]

Thank you again, I am going to have another try today

P.S. Shot with Christmas paper is great