Santa made a mess - C&C wanted

[Theantiquetiger]

I know, way off season, but it was the only white mug I could find. I saw this in a magazine and played around with it for fun. I got three shots on three drops and this was the best.



cookie drop by Theantiquetiger, on Flickr

 

[Buckster]

It's a neat idea, and pretty well executed. A little warm, but that probably fits the theme. I'd probably do a little work in post to shop out the motion blur on the milk drop areas that show it most strongly.

What's your method of freezing the action? It looks like you're mostly depending on the shutter speed at 1/250th to do it, but that's not quite getting you where you need to be to really freeze it solid. Do you have a speedlight you can bring into the mix?

 

[Theantiquetiger]

It's a neat idea, and pretty well executed. A little warm, but that probably fits the theme. I'd probably do a little work in post to shop out the motion blur on the milk drop areas that show it most strongly.

What's your method of freezing the action? It looks like you're mostly depending on the shutter speed at 1/250th to do it, but that's not quite getting you where you need to be to really freeze it solid. Do you have a speedlight you can bring into the mix?

I was just arms length from the cup, my hand just out of frame. I held down the shutter on multiple high speed, and drop a small rubber ball into the cup.

I swear I had it in 1/1000, all in manual. I didn't realize until I uploaded them to computer that they were shot in 1/250. I just used a mounted speedlite and the overhead lights were pretty bright.

The thing I dislike the most about this is, you can actually see the DOF line (just below the plate.

 

[480sparky]

What's missing for me is WHY it's spilling over.

 

[Theantiquetiger]

What's missing for me is WHY it's spilling over.

Thats what the cookies are for. it is supposed to say someone is dropping cookies in the cup. The photo series I saw in a magazine that had these, used a lot of Starbucks cups, coffee, etc.

 

[Buckster]

If I were shooting it, I'd probably dim the ambient lights that illuminated this subject to almost nothing, lower the ISO to 100, use a longer shutter to compensate for bringing the background lights back to where you want them, then use the flash's stopping power of up to 1/60,000th of a second to stop the action on the subject. You could light it off-camera through a simple umbrella or softbox just above and in front of the subject and out of frame, or bounce it off a panel to get the even lighting again, and the closer you get it, the more it would help reduce the speedlight power for the fastest flash duration.

 

[480sparky]

What's missing for me is WHY it's spilling over.

Thats what the cookies are for. it is supposed to say someone is dropping cookies in the cup. The photo series I saw in a magazine that had these, used a lot of Starbucks cups, coffee, etc.

If that's the case, then a cookie should be shown dropping into the mug. As it is, all I can say is someone out of frame bumped the table.

 

[Buckster]

What's missing for me is WHY it's spilling over.

Thats what the cookies are for. it is supposed to say someone is dropping cookies in the cup. The photo series I saw in a magazine that had these, used a lot of Starbucks cups, coffee, etc.

If that's the case, then a cookie should be shown dropping into the mug. As it is, all I can say is someone out of frame bumped the table.

In that case, although I like the holiday theme of the snowman mug, a clear glass would probably work better, so that the cookie could be seen inside acting as the splash catalyst (even if it was Photohopped in to take the place of the ball). Otherwise, how is there a splash from the cookie, if the cookie is still outside the mug so we can see it, and dropping toward the surface of the milk inside the mug somewhere, unseen by us?

 

[ktan7]

It's summer time man. Shoot some cocktails and mojitos

 

[PixelRabbit]

I swear I had it in 1/1000, all in manual. I didn't realize until I uploaded them to computer that they were shot in 1/250. I just used a mounted speedlite and the overhead lights were pretty bright.

You probably did have your SS set to 1/1000... Until you mounted the speedlight, your camera will automatically reset your speed to 1/250 which is the max speed it will give you with the flash.