Not exactly Macro but fun anyway!!

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mawyatt
Posts: 2497
Joined: Thu Aug 22, 2013 6:54 pm
Location: Clearwater, Florida

Not exactly Macro but fun anyway!!

Post by mawyatt »

This isn't exactly Macro but thought some would like to give it a try.

A rain storm passed by this weekend and I was on the patio cleaning the area and noticed the garden hose slowly dripping into the pool. Hose was sitting on the pool's edge about 6~8" above the water surface. The drops were producing rings expanding on the pool surface.

I have always wanted to try to capture water drops splashing, so I grabbed my D800 which had the 24-70mm lens and got my YN-560IV manual flash and 4 enloops. I set the D800 to full manual and shutter to 1/320 (max flash synch speed), and aperture to f11 for some focus depth, and flash on hot-shoe.

Then estimated I'll need about 1/16 flash power. Took a quick test shot and bingo exposure was about right.

I set the lens to manual focus at 70mm and placed a plastic card (not your good credit card though!!) under the hose, floating on the pool surface. I manually focused on where the drops were hitting the card (use card text to focus on). After the card floated away I started trying to time the drops hitting the pool surface.

Took a couple dozen shots and got some decent ones, tried 1/32 flash power and added 2/3 stop which seemed to be right exposure and took a few more. Later I'm going to use a tripod and off camera flash or two with High Speed Synch, so I can crank the shutter speed down to 1/1000 or less. Generally you want the flash to expose the drops entirely and a fast shutter speed to reduce the ambient light (along with the small aperture).

Anyway, this only took 15 minutes to do, and was fun to boot!!

Best,

MikeImage
Image
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slophotopro
Posts: 5
Joined: Fri Sep 16, 2016 10:10 pm
Location: Los Osos, ca

Post by slophotopro »

some people have control of the speed of the strobe so you can get it at varying heights. Others use sound triggers so when the drop hits it sets off the strobe.
It is a science and often used to study different weights of liquids.
example
http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/04/ ... -lift-off/

Ron

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