How do you take such shots?

[EchoingWhisper]

500px / Photo "Bokeh Splash" by Corrie WhiteAll I know is that it is at 100mm and 1/2 secs.

 

[Stradawhovious]

There is really no way this is a 1/2sec exposure. If it was, it was really overkill. To freeze water like that, with any kind of ambient lighting involved, the exposure would have to have been much faster.... bue either way this picture probably encorporated at least one flash off camera, if not multiple.

To address your original question, I would guess that the light (strobe) used was bonced off of a background that was covered with diffeent colered reflective sequins or sparklies that is more than likely a decent distance from the subject. These in turn reflected back to the water, but were diffused enough through reflection from the flash, and distance from the water as to give some sort of shallow DOF effect.

(this is an assumption on my part, and may or may not reflect the actual process at hand. For an exact recipe, I would contact the person who holds that Flickr account.)

How to get the picture of the droplet is another story all together. The drop in question was made by two droplets in quick succesion, and is an exercize in patience and timing.

Good luck!

 

[EmilRye]

The 1/2 sec shutter speed would be possible if all the ambient light was killed, since the flash would still freeze the drops ..

The make the two drops hit that precisely takes a lot of time, practice and patience.

 

[Stradawhovious]

The 1/2 sec shutter speed would be possible if all the ambient light was killed, since the flash would still freeze the drops ..

Yes, but completely un-necessary.

And almost impossible to time the shot without a sound trigger.

 

[Compaq]

Timing both the shutter and the flash at the same time would be annoying, at best. You can set off the flash when wanting to, yes?

Anyway.... that shot is wicked.

 

[Stradawhovious]

Timing both the shutter and the flash at the same time would be annoying, at best.

Unless you use an optical trigger or radio trigger........ then it would be a breeze.

I wouldn't even try it any other way for this shot.

 

[2WheelPhoto]

The bokeh here is made by using crumpled tin foil and the colours come from strips of coloured gels on the flash guns.

Photographer said that^^^^^

 

[Stradawhovious]

The bokeh here is made by using crumpled tin foil and the colours come from strips of coloured gels on the flash guns.

Photographer said that^^^^^

That's pretty cool right there.

I will have to stow that away in my bag o' tricks.

 

[GooniesNeverSayDie11]

The 1/2 sec shutter speed would be possible if all the ambient light was killed, since the flash would still freeze the drops ..

Yes, but completely un-necessary.

And almost impossible to time the shot without a sound trigger.

It wouldn't be that hard. By the looks of it, its not a water drop, its an object that was dropped. Probably something like a coin. It would be fairly easy to drop a coin with a shutter release in your hand, and trigger the shutter just as the coin ( or pebble or whatnot ) hits the water. I am sure it would take several tries, but would probably work pretty effectively with enough practice given the setup.

 

[Stradawhovious]

By the looks of it, its not a water drop, its an object that was dropped.

Nope.

Classic Two Droplet photo. Pretty standard for those of us with enough time to beat the dead horse of "water droplet photography" to dismemberment.

Timing a two droplet sequence without any ambient light (without the use of a sound trigger) would be torture.

And painfully unnecesary.



However....................

The question for me remains........

How to get the DOF with something being reflected off of the water, which is in clear focus........

Confused I am.

 

[ann]

There are a whole slew of these on 500px

 

[889Media]

I tried freezing water with slow shutter speed, and it is really not a problem.. these were just test shots, and everything except the water drops was really bad. This was just to test out how to take shots like these. Using almost no ambient light, and your flash guns as the only source of light - it is no problem using shutter speeds of 1/2, 1 or even 2 or 3 seconds.

In fact, the flash fires much faster than the camera...so a short duration of light during a long exposure might give a better result than just a fast shutter speed. And it will leave out any shake of the camera what so ever to give that sharp look of the image. But, getting a shot like that without any help would demand great patience When i tried this, i simply used a two second delay and a two second exposure...giving me plenty of time to get ready and drop some ice cubes into the water! If i needed more time, i just set the delay to 10 seconds. Then, as the ice cube hit the water, I fired the flash gun from my hand...freezing every drop of water. Even though this was just a first try, and the image did not get very well, it was clearly a technique that can give some great results if I keep trying

Spending more time on the setup, and maybe additional flash guns to create ambient light, I am sure that someone here could get results just like that - even with a long exposure!

 

[Overread36]

People that do this kind of shooting rarely are relying upon chance that the waterdrops hit - instead most are using sound/laser triggers and controlled waterdropping methods to both get a constant, repeatable drop and also set the flash guns off at the right time to freeze the motion.

A common setup is a controlled waterdrop with a laser trip part the way down - so that the water drop breaks the trip line and then a delay is placed upon the flashes before they fire. That way they can adjust the delay on the trip to varying the effect of when the shutter fires.
Stuff like this: Cognisys - Products

would be what I'd be using if I wanted to do this kind of photography more than once or twice on teh offchance (you could do it, but you'd be taking a very very long time).

 

[Johnboy2978]

Stuff like this: Cognisys - Products

Pretty cool collection of toys for the water drop enthusiast. It's almost like paying someone to do it all for you though by the time you get the drop system, the laser triggers, etc. I entertained myself with drops for an afternoon and engineered my own rig for the water, but I didn't get results nearly as nice as this, of course I didn't spend $400+ on it either.

 

[Noxire]

The creator of the image in question and many more like it is fairly known on the interwebs (Corrie White)

And she has published a tutorial on the subject on diyphotography.net

Here ya go!

The Comprehensive Water Drop Photography Guide | DIYPhotography.net