How do you explain - -

[Ron Evers]

- the shape of these water drops.

Tripod
off camera flash
ISO 200
1/160s
f8

I would expect the drops to be frozen & round, not elongated. :scratch:

 

[Geaux]

Are you talking about the drops falling or the ones frozen already up top?

The ones up top are elongated b/c of the slow freezing process of the droplets causing an elongated frozen piece. If you're talking about the ones falling .... could be a result of a slower shutter?

Not really sure what you're talking about here Ron

 

[Bend The Light]

The drops are not elongated, I think.
The drop ARE accellerating, so in the 1/160s of the shot, the drops near the top have travelled a short distance. The drops that have already travelled a way down are travelling faster, and so the flash/shutter catches them at the opening of the shutter, and records their image as they decend until the shutter closes. They are not elongated drops, just BLURRED drops. Longer blurs further down as they are moving faster.

That's how I see it, anyway...

 

[el_shorty]

Shutter speed is not fast enough to freeze the water drops mid air.

Edit: better explanation by Bend the Light.

 

[OrionsByte]

Probably a wind resistance thing. I took a shot of some raindrops the other day and noticed the smaller ones stayed round but the larger ones are more elongated, just like the ones in your shot.

(Sorry for posting it as a link, I'm posting from my phone, plus I don't want to hijack your thread)

Leaf in the rain

So I would guess, though I'm no physics expert, that water has a certain terminal velocity that limits how large a drop can get and still stay round?

For those suggesting it's the shutter speed, keep in mind the OCF is firing much faster than 1/160th. If it was a shutter speed phenomenon, there would be a well-lit round drop with a less-exposed elongation.

 

[Ron Evers]

Shutter speed is not fast enough to freeze the water drops mid air.

I would expect this without flash but was counting on the flash freezing them. Perhaps I just had too much light behind the drops allowing the motion to be seen.

 

[el_shorty]

Perhaps I just had too much light behind the drops allowing the motion to be seen.

^^^ yes.

 

[syphlix]

yea... it's being lit from ambient... u can test it by just keeping same settings in manual, turning off the flash, and taking a shot

 

[tirediron]

Hard water?

 

[Ron Evers]

I am sure I have the answer, thanks guys.

 

[gsgary]

Shutter speed is not fast enough to freeze the water drops mid air.

I would expect this without flash but was counting on the flash freezing them. Perhaps I just had too much light behind the drops allowing the motion to be seen.

Flash will only freeze motion at slow shutter speeds when there is no abient light

 

[Ron Evers]

Shutter speed is not fast enough to freeze the water drops mid air.

I would expect this without flash but was counting on the flash freezing them. Perhaps I just had too much light behind the drops allowing the motion to be seen.

Flash will only freeze motion at slow shutter speeds when there is no abient light

Well, I have seen pics of humming birds frozen in flight by flash in daylight & that is what I was taking my cue from.

 

[OrionsByte]

Shutter speed is not fast enough to freeze the water drops mid air.

I would expect this without flash but was counting on the flash freezing them. Perhaps I just had too much light behind the drops allowing the motion to be seen.

Flash will only freeze motion at slow shutter speeds when there is no abient light

...provided your exposure is sufficient enough for the ambient light. If you're underexposing the ambient without the flash, you're still going to be underexposing the ambient with the flash.

So motion blur would require the ambient light to be exposed just as well as the flash is. If there's no ambient light, it wouldn't matter if your exposure was 30 seconds long, the flash will freeze the drops.

 

[OrionsByte]

I would expect this without flash but was counting on the flash freezing them. Perhaps I just had too much light behind the drops allowing the motion to be seen.

Flash will only freeze motion at slow shutter speeds when there is no abient light

Well, I have seen pics of humming birds frozen in flight by flash in daylight & that is what I was taking my cue from.

You've got a lot more experience than I do, but what I would do is take some setup shots without the flash to see how much ambient "contamination" I was getting. I can recommend this and know it works because I've done it several times on accident.

 

[o hey tyler]

Yeah, it's definitely a similar exposure for flash and ambient combined with the fact that the drops are falling at 9.8m/s^2 and are accelerating from point A (Icicle) to B (the Ground). That's really the only explanation I can think of...