Two Water Droplet Shots for C&C

Natalie · Dec 16, 2011

I was out in my yard today when I noticed that on a tree I could see the shadows and refracted light of some of last night's raindrops through the bottom of the leaf. I thought it was pretty striking, so I wanted to get a shot before the sun was hidden behind the clouds again. Over all, I think the shot came out pretty well, though one thing that concerns me is that the shadows of the drops look a bit noisy (I did shoot at a high ISO). The "noise", however, isn't noise at all, but rather tiny hairs that are just a part of the underside of the leaf. Not much I can do about that.

1/160 sec, f/18.0, 1600 ISO, no flash

And the second shot is one I posted earlier today on the Beginner's forum thread about boring locations, and since it's a similar theme I just thought I'd post it here too. It's an empty plastic water bottle that was sitting next to my laptop, and I decided to get a shot of it to demonstrate that an interesting shot can be taken anywhere.

1/50 sec, f/16.0, ISO 3200, no flash

What do you guys think of them?

camz · Dec 16, 2011

First I think is mediocre.

But the second one...woah! It's very good. My brain still can't understand the composition even though you've explained what it is.

Natalie · Dec 16, 2011

Thanks for the feedback! What do you feel is mediocre about the first one, if you don't mind me asking? Just trying to figure out what I could do better in the future. With the second shot, it's just condensation on the inside of an empty water bottle. It's one of those Aquafina bottles that has molded curves and whatnot, like this one: http://www.polyvore.com/cgi/img-thing?.out=jpg&size=l&tid=15260296

michaeljamesphoto · Dec 16, 2011

I would say its the subject matter and composition of that first shot that are holding it back from being successful. I'm not sure what you could have done differently, it may just be boring regardless of how you shot it. Right now it does have a "snapshot" feel to it for some reason

Natalie · Dec 16, 2011

Thanks, Michael. I think water drops are just a hard thing to make look interesting - search for "macro" on Flickr and a lot of the results are (very boring) photos of water droplets on leaves and windows. :lol:

Though I was trying to make it a bit more interesting by shooting the bottom of the leaf rather than the drops themselves, perhaps no one could make it interesting no matter how it was shot. Something I do like about that photo though, is how it looks three dimensional when viewed from a bit of a distance, even though it is a completely flat surface.

I think I know that you mean about the snapshot look, and I believe that's a technical error on my part. The photo isn't perfectly focused, and there is a very slight motion blur caused by camera movement and the slow shutter speed. The high ISO doesn't help that snapshot look either. If it had been a bit more crisp, I think it would have been better.

shaneclark · Dec 16, 2011

camz said:
First I think is mediocre.

But the second one...woah! It's very good. My brain still can't understand the composition even though you've explained what it is.

Yes Camz, I agree with you. The second one is very beautiful and good. I want also to know about that composition.

camz · Dec 16, 2011

Natalie said:
Thanks for the feedback! What do you feel is mediocre about the first one, if you don't mind me asking? Just trying to figure out what I could do better in the future. With the second shot, it's just condensation on the inside of an empty water bottle. It's one of those Aquafina bottles that has molded curves and whatnot, like this one: http://www.polyvore.com/cgi/img-thing?.out=jpg&size=l&tid=15260296

The image is flat composition wise. You have some lines there as you got in depth with the capillaries, but where does the eye tend to glance, where does the eye rest when looking at the image? For me it didn't at all and my ADD brain lost interest. There's no significant pattern, no significant subject, no significant line(s). So to me there's nothing significant about it.

You know on the second, I thought it was carbonation from some type of drink at first glance. I wouldn't have thought that was condensation because of the spacing between the droplets. It's good.