Water Drop - for AIP

[Jmurphy18]

AIP, I have thousands of water drop shots. I got really die hard on drops in 2014. Here is one I too recent that folks really loved. I moved the shot from your thread to here and I hope this is the proper location.
As I noted on your thread, my controller is an MJKZZ. basically a system by Peter Lyn out of China. Mine is a 6 valve controller system meaning I can run 6 valves at one time. The most I have run at one time is 5 valves dropping...
This is a "Shoot from below" shot. i.e. I have a pressurized jet below shooting up into one above. The one from below is hitting 2 drops from above. Yes it does tend to make a mess as the below is at 6 psi and above at 2 psi.

Here is an older shot of my splash rig. what you cannot see are my 5 flashes. 2 on each side, and a snorted one rear all handled by the controller in the front.

if you have any question just ask
John

[AlP]

Very nice setup and cool water drop too. I'll have to rethink water drops for this winter (snow hasn't arrived yet, fortunately). I thought MJKZZ was out of Germany with a side office in New York. Are you using anything other than the usual suspects, guar gum, xanthan gum, glycerin, Rinso, etc? It has come a long way since my first droppings back in 2000 with a homemade flash trigger and Vivitar 283 flashes with Honeywell optical slaves.

[rjlittlefield]

MJKZZ is Peter Lin, doing business out of China, recently with a collaborator/reseller in Germany. Historically mjkzz has not had formal US presence. A side office in New York is news to me. Just now I searched on mjkzz new york and found https://mjkzz.biz . That site says "Online Store of NY". The phone number & name on the site lead to YZ Photography of Jackson Heights, which has an unclaimed Yelp page that talks about "Pet Photography, Session Photography, Screen Printing/T-Shirt Printing". Domain name lookup for mjkzz.biz reports that the registrant is "redacted for privacy" so I didn't learn much there. Checking the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, I found that mjkzz.biz was first crawled in August 2020, and at that time it already mentioned the connection to YZ Photography. I stopped there.

--Rik

[AlP]

Product line in NY is a little different than the German site, no adaptors (microscope objective) and such. Not a big deal until you need or are looking for one.

[Jmurphy18]

I can shed a bit of light on NY. This is Yuefei Zheng. Works the same as the De site. Both are independents. . Peter Lin is the main vender. Both sites sell to local so that you do not have to pay shipping from China. Yeufei went dark during Covid as he caught Covid-19 and spent 14mo in hospital. He did share this on the FB forum "Drop Art Photography". it's a closed site that requires membership but is easy to join. it is for MJKZZ systems. FYI. Yuefei was a professor at NYU, not sure if he still is.

AIP: I have trie about everything . Gar gum, Xanthum gum, glycerin ( poor), Methyl Cellulose, Thicken up and Nutilis Clear The best for my shooting - use is Nutilis Clear or ThickenUp.
I get the Nutillis Clear out of England from a friend... Shipping is pricy but it works good. ThickenUp off Amazon. I use an airbrush compressor tanked to provide air to my system for the pressurization vs that tiny pump you see on Peter's and Yuefei's site

Same here on coming a long way. I started with a pyrex dish and bike bottles nailled to a 2x4 with a fish tank valve LOL. for color I used my fountain pen ink........ can you say monster mess LOL!@!! I am using Yongnuo flashes now.

[AlP]

Hhmmm, I have never heard of ThickenUp or Nutilis Clear, however I did an Amazon.ca search yesterday for both. ThickenUp was $5.99 CA and Nutlis was $56 CA. This morning ThickenUp is now $19.99 CA and Nutlis is delisted. Fountain pen ink? Yes, I can see that being very messy. We just used plain old food colouring with water or milk. For a reservoir it was an IV bag with a brass valve attached.

[Jmurphy18]

LOL. I am using acrylic paint now in the mix vs food coloring. Some of the mixes are all the same or at least close. HAGD. Right now not doing much as my laptop went in for repair and I can do nothing till I get it back. So use to thether shooting it hard doing other wise.

[AlP]

I've done the acrylic paint (normal and fluorescent) and even fire. Lighter fluid worked the best but me thinks I will not do that in the house again. Flames got over two feet. Not too worried about the ceiling catching fire but the MiIOPS unit. Problem with a single unit is that one (meaning me) is limited to the one colour, no fancy multi colour collisions. Black Friday is coming soon, there is a few things I want to buy. Just out of curiosity, what is your drop height?

[Jmurphy18]

Sorry, laptop keyboard took a dump yesterday….. working off iPad right now so I am a little slower as I am missing posts
17” is my drop height. Tip of V2 (center valve) to the top of V5( Shoot from below valve). According to my logs I was an 1” taller dropping into a pan for shoot from above. Darn liquid fire!! I will pass on that one LOL. I do shoot in the house and have been know to paint my ceiling fan a time or two.

FYI on the acrylic paint the folks have found that the metallic paint will gum and jam the valves due to the metal content.

HAGD and weekend

[AlP]

I thought about glitter then I thought about all the specular highlights that would drive me nuts/crazy. True about metallic paints gumming up valves.

[Jmurphy18]

Yes and the cleanup and fixing of the valves can be costly! Especially when you have 4-6

Have you tried doing crowns? Basically dropping a single drop onto acrylic glass. Mix is normally 1/2 & 1/2 not straight cream with milk. Straight cream closest then valves in about 20 min and is heck to clean. Also be sure to clean everything after this as the “smell” is wonderful if you do not You have to clean the glass after each shot as the black acrylic is not your friend but simple Windex and a cheep towel works great. Toothpick and apply diluted acrylic paint in a circle around the center point and just drop. Just requires time and patience but you get same great shot.
I cannot post a shot for reference as my laptop is in for repairs and I am on my iPad and they are saves in some weird format here. But here is a link to my website with some crowns
https://www.jmjstudios.net/Projects/Drop-Art/Crowns/

[AlP]

Yup, done crowns which I personally didn't find "exciting". I am in the process of getting a custom aquarium built for doing water drops with fluorescent dyes (via markers). The glass (Starphire) allegedly is clear and optically flat vs regular aquarium glass.