Modified 14-Sep-09
Created 14-Sep-09
0 photos

Everyone keeps asking me about these.
Sigh. Okay. . .here's how you do it. As with most flash photography, it's the flash, not the shutter, that froze the action.

I used a glass brownie pan for the water bath. It's messy, so the first place I could find where I wouldnt really have to clean up after myself was on our screened porch. There happens to be a glass table there. With water in the pan, pan on the table, now suspend a food storage bag with about a pint of water in it 4-5' over the pan . . .I used a light stand and a marshmallow forkto hold up the water bag.

Take your flash OFF the camera, and bounce off a surface directly BEHIND the pan of water (12 o'clock as you look at it). I tried bouncing off a couple of things, but the red is from a red t-shirt. The flash is just out of the frame to the left, bouncing off the red T-shirt which is over a Raisin Bran box right behind the pan. Must be Raisin Bran or the whole thing wont work. The water surface and backsplash is lit by the bounced flash.

Now the hard part--focus. Camera (I used a 100mm macro--you will get your lens wet with a 50 I think) on a tripod. Make a tiny hole in the bag with a needle (not a steak knife, not a fork, not your teeth, but a needle or pin) .. . drip . . drip . . drip . . . very even. Hold a pencil point exactly where the drops are hitting the water and focus once on the pencil point then leave the focus alone unless you bump or adjust the camera.

Now count the drops. . .like in music . . with some practice, you can time it right. Clean the lens often--the water splatter gets on the lens even with a 100mm macro lens. Bubbles will form on the inside of the pan now and then. . .the dripping stream introduces air into the water, and the bubbles stick to the pan. Swipe them off (notice you can see them in some photos, not the others).

Oh yeah, why'd I use the glass table? Mainly because it was there, but I figured with glass pan and table it'd be worth trying to create a highlight using a second straight white or gelled blue flash under the table. I aimed this up from below at about 25 degrees, and put a tight honeycomb on it so it only lit the splash point. I used pocketwizards to trigger the flashes but this can be done about as well with a single flash on a wire.
It does not requre a fancy camera or fancy equipment other than a macro lens.

The lighting requires some experimentation. . .I set both flashes on manual and pretty low, about 1:4 ratio bottom to top. Then I shot a whole bunch of frames. . .with a little bit of practice and careful counting, you can time it right about 1/3 of the time to get the back-splashed drop in the air.

The all-blue shots are lit just by the lower flash. The all red ones, just by the bounce. What I was shooting for, a pool of red and glowing red orb with white/blue highlights, was achieved using both flashes at the 1:4 ratio. At some point I introduced some crumpled aluminum foil to give some character to the bounce, but those werent too good.

I got the basics from a YouTube video but this isnt very hard.

So, that's how I did it.
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