| Photo Information |
Copyright: Helmut Samerski (spiker26)
![Silver Star Critiquer/Silver Note Writer [C: 11 W: 4 N: 49]](http://i1.treklens.com/misc/s-n-s.gif) (290) |
| Genre: Places |
| Medium: Color |
| Date Taken: 2008-03-03 |
| Categories: Macro |
| Camera: Nikon D300, Nikon 105mm Macro |
| Exposure: f/14.0, 1/100 seconds |
| Details: Tripod: Yes (Fill) Flash: Yes |
| More Photo Info: [view] |
| Photo Version: Original Version |
| Date Submitted: 2008-09-02 0:51 |
| Viewed: 403 |
| Points: 6 |
|
| [Note Guidelines] Photographer's Note |
Water Works!
One sees it so often; it just intrigued me to see if I could do it, that’s all. It is fun and easy.
Should you want to try it, this is what you need or should I say this is what I did/used. There are several ways to skin the proverbial cat, all harmless- for the skinner, not for the cat.
You need:
Glass-bowl-bigger than a wineglass,
Liquid-water, clear or coloured with food colouring, (can use milk, red wine, beer, oil-cooking or engine etc messy)
Two coloured A4 size sheets of paper, in my case both pink-ish.
Syringe - 20-60 ml - clean! Do I need to say: Do not use the once you find on the beach or in the alley?
Plastic tubing - 1m (for the metrically challenged - 3ft) which fits on the syringe (glue it on if need be -there is no pressure in the system),
Sharp pointed nail (wait for it)
Camera (really?)
Macro lens - preferably,
Flash light-needed,
Background (black- or whatever).
MY set-up was like this; (other set-ups will work as well but let me describe mine)
Set camera on tripod, centre of lens level with surface of liquid and fine adjust later through viewfinder. Set camera on ‘rapid fire’ (Nikon D300 on CH)
ISO 200, not important but works well if you want to crop later, my picture here is not cropped nor processed in any way.
Speed 100, not important but not too fast and not faster than the flash
Aperture as best as you can, you do want best DOF, this picture was f:14
Picture quality: definitely.jpg, suggest Large/fine! You definitely don’t want to fill your buffer up to quickly, lots of things will happen in the ‘drop-zone. See below)
Focus MANUALLY!
Macro lens (I used Nikon 105mm, f:2.8)
Fill glass-bowl up with fluid of your choice, 5mm below rim, in my case clear water => less mess, Fill red wine in a separate glass standing-by but for internal use only.
Take A4 sheets long side side by side and with sticky tape on the long side, make two little ‘hinges’ and tape sheets together. So you can lay one A4 UNDER the glass bowl and the other A4 standing on edge (prop it up) on the right side of the glass - get that? One lying down the other standing up but no gap in-between - harder to explain than to do.
The flash light SB800 with NEW batteries stands off camera on the left side ‘looking right’ at the glass and level with the surface of the liquid – or thereabout.
What’s with this bloody nail I hear you think?
Take a nail with a large flat head (like a roofing nail as opposed to a bull head nail). The nail must be at least 3-5mm longer than the glass bowl is deep, for reasons which become apparent in a tick. Sharpen its point and carefully stand it in the glass bowl (use tweezers if you have fat fingers like me or if you a ‘mover and shaker’ unlike me). The point of the nail is your focus point! So it needs to be a bit above liquid level or you don’t see it. The drops MUST hit the VERY tip of the nail when they come down or you're out of focus. You are playing with small DOF, so you must be spot on.
Support your 1m tube about 700mm (2ft?) above the nail. I had fixed my ‘open/dropping’ end to a bit of fence wire, curved at the top and fixed/clamped down on the table.
Move the bowl ever so carful that the nail doesn’t fall over (or manipulate the tube wire) until the drop hits the VERY tip of he nail-NO not close to it, smack bang on it as in “hit the nail on the pointed head”.
Voila, you are now in focus! And manual!
DO NOT go to close with your lens, or you get only part of the ‘water works’ in the frame. Try different distances, somewhat determined by the lens you have/use.
Switch on camera (essential) and flash (important).
Use remote trigger or wireless and fire one! Your nail point should/must be in focus now! Zoom in on your monitor if you can and check. I use a small DVD player and plug it into the D300 to enlarge my screen, works very well.
As you depress the syringe (forgot to say “fill with whatever liquid first”) the drops will hit the point of the nail. Take a shot and make minor adjustments if needed.
Now is the time to REMOVE NAIL. I know you were wondering when that comes! NOW!
Depress the syringe and let one drop come down and anticipate when it hits the bowl. You need to be able to multi-task between your right hand and left hand. If you can walk and chew gum, you are already a multi-tasker and you got “GO”.
In practise it is not THAT important, just slowly squeeze the syringe and hit the trigger and let the camera do its ‘thing’.
Now, here comes the tricky bit.
The drop comes down, hits the water and causes a depression in the ‘pool’ and something bounces back up again due to surface tension before it bounces back down again and disappears. That all takes time although be it milliseconds. We talking 1/100 sec for the shutter, milliseconds for the flash, droplet bouncing up and down, it is a mess! So just hit the button and squeeze the syringe and let nature do what it does best, surprise you - again. Keep pressing the syringe and stop when you hear the buffer is full and the camera slows down.
That is a pretty repeatable event and you should try it and look at your results. You get some fantastically beautifully formed spheres and sequences and you can delete all but the best later.
If you look at my picture here closely, (one of many) you see a upward moving column of water being hit by the next drop coming down and splitting it open, causing the “Cristal Chandelier” effect. This happens when you press your syringe a bit firmer, so that the drops come down quicker and interact as they hit the bowl. A water column is on the way up and it collides with a new drop coming down. So you want quick succession of drops but NOT ‘running’ water.
It is a nice project for a rainy day. (Sorry this site seem not to have tutorial facility where one can add explanatory pictures)
If anything is not clear, please feel free to email me, I took a couple of set-up shots and am pleased to email them to you. Who said a picture speaks a thousand words? Confucius!
PS:
a)If you use milk, experiment with gel filters on your flash; I did drink my milk just as my mummy told me, and the wine and the yellow stuff! All I had left was water.
b)You can also tape two different colour A3 sheets together like pink and yellow or yellow and blue etc.
c)By the way, see your pharmacist for a used syringe, tell him what you want it for, most will give you one so you don’t have to buy a box of 1000 or find one in the alley. If he is difficult, tell him that you know where he lives and where his children go to school. It worked for me! :))
Hope this helps |
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