Water Drops. (C&C welcome)

John_05

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I've seen this done hundreds of times, but never tried it myself.

I was bored one night, so I decided to try it.

I took a glass bowl and filled it with cold water and placed it on top of my file cabinet (along with a towel to contain the mess).

I set a 36" silver reflector above the bowl, tilted slightly towards the camera and flash. I hung a dragon towel I have on a piece of foam board behind the bowl for a colorful backdrop.

With my camera and tripod set about 6 feet back, I focused on a coin I hung from a string in the general area I expected the drops to be. Once I got a good focus on the coin, I set the lens to manual focus.

Rather than try to get uniform water drops without a dropper, I decided to drop small glass marbles into the water. After about 20 tries, this is the best one I managed to get.

These are straight out of the camera, except for a slight sharpen after resizing.

7d94b786.jpg


Here is a link to a slightly larger version.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v348/john13901/d012afae.jpg

I don't know if the EXIF is still intact, so I'll post that too.

Sigma 70-300mm f4-5.6 DG with macro.
f/13
1/200
190mm focal length
metering mode - partial

Any comments/critique or tips anyone has would be greatly appreciated.
 
Well done!
Looks like one of my droplet photos that went into a small exhibition a couple of days ago! The surface looks just that tiny bit tilted, that's all, everything else is good.
At 190mm, the Sigma had not gone into macro function as yet?
 
Well done!
Looks like one of my droplet photos that went into a small exhibition a couple of days ago! The surface looks just that tiny bit tilted, that's all, everything else is good.
At 190mm, the Sigma had not gone into macro function as yet?

Thank you LaFoto.

The edge of the bowl is slightly tilted. I hadn't noticed that. I thought it was just due to the shape of the bowl. I might try a reshoot when I get my bowl back. :lol:

I wanted to use the macro function, but my apartment is a little too small. I couldn't get it focused in the limited space I have.

For a lens that only cost $120.00USD brand new, I think it works pretty well.

Thanks again for the compliments and for pointing that edge out. ;)
 
oh thats great, very colourful, i keep meaning to try these with my sigma 70-300 apo dg macro too, maybe this week ill get round to it :)
 
:thumbup::thumbup:

Excellent.​
 
oh thats great, very colourful, i keep meaning to try these with my sigma 70-300 apo dg macro too, maybe this week ill get round to it :)

I've got the APO version as well and think I might try this as well.

OP - I notice that you didn't need to use macro mode to get this shot. It also makes me wonder.....if you used macro mode at 200-300mm I bet you could focus close enough to get near full frame of the water droplet and possibly some cool reflections from the droplet. I may give this a shot....your shot is very nice by the way.
 
Thanks everyone.

I actually have a picture of the set up I used. I was going to post it when I made the thread, but I was half awake and forgot to add it.

b35d19c7.jpg


When I try this again, I'd like to be able to catch more of the dragon reflected in the drop. I think moving the towel down a bit and using something else to get a slightly larger drop will help.

I've got the APO version as well and think I might try this as well.

OP - I notice that you didn't need to use macro mode to get this shot. It also makes me wonder.....if you used macro mode at 200-300mm I bet you could focus close enough to get near full frame of the water droplet and possibly some cool reflections from the droplet. I may give this a shot....your shot is very nice by the way.

I wanted to try that, but I couldn't move back far enough. I may try taking everything upstairs to the solarium so I have more than enough room to get just the drop in the frame.

Thanks again to everyone for the comments.
 
I meant to ask, why sharpen after resizing? Is this preferable or a matter of taste? (Genuine "don't know the answer" type question. :))
 
I meant to ask, why sharpen after resizing? Is this preferable or a matter of taste? (Genuine "don't know the answer" type question. :))


I normally don't sharpen after i resize, unless it loses a bit of detail. In this case, I think it looked a little bit softer, so I sharpened it, but only very slightly. I'm not sure if the percentage you size it down has an effect, but sometimes I notice sharpening isn't needed. I know when viewing the image in PSP X2 at an odd percentage, it looks softer. That may be why sometimes it's needed after a resize. I'm not sure.
 

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