Splash!

[Thomas René Sidor]

First of all, what do you think about the colors? Secondly - how do I improve this? I'm really having a hard time getting it sharp and having a wide (is it wide, deep, or?) DOF. I were using my Canon 100mm f/2.8 Macro lens on a tripod for this.

To the left of the glass was a halogen spot and to the right a 430EX Speedlite (at most 6 inches / 15 cm. away)

EXIF:
Camera: Canon EOS 400D DIGITAL
Exposure Time: 1/2000 sec
Aperature: f 13
ISO: 1600
Focal Length: 100 mm
Flash: Flash: Fired

[xysmas]

First off - fun shot. The colors are nicely contrasting and the water is a nice blue hue.

second - I think you are working too hard to get the speed you want. Drop your ISO back to 200/400ish, open up your lens, and drop the shutter down to 500~. 1/500 should be plenty to stop that motion and you shouldn't need much more than F/8 to get everything plenty crisp. Your point of focus is more important here - are you focusing on the rim, rear of the cup, letting the lens autofocus, etc.? with a high speed shot like this, i would manually focus in the 'middle' of the glass and just fire away when you want to.

[clockdoc]

How close were you to the glass? Use a longer focal length lens and move farther away. This will offer you better depth of field for a given f/stop. Is there a special reason you used your 100mm macro lens for this shot? The color is OK. What is the item causing the splash? Is it possible to use only the speedlight with a bounce reflector on the opposite side? By doing that you harness the faster stopping power of the speedlight as opposed to allowing the halogen spotlight to create ambient light and possible blurring. Hope this all makes sense. Nice capture in any event!

[Thomas René Sidor]

Really good points from both of you!

I was about 5 feet / 1.5 meters from the glass and really can't get any further back due to the limitations of my off camera shoe cord for the flash - I chose the 100mm Macro as it delivered a reasonable focal length and has excellent manual focus (and my 100-300mm aren't as 'crisp' as the 100mm). I did manual focus in the middle of the glass - just between the two rims as you suggests.

clockdoc - I really see your point about the ambient light from the halogen. I think this'll do the trick. This probably also means that I can use a ~1/500 shutter speed as xysmas suggests.

I'll have to try it out...

Oh, and the thing dropped in the water - it's a hazel nut

[clockdoc]

Thanks for the detailed explanation of your shot. One point to make about focus in that depth of field advances towards the camera one-third and away from the camera lens two thirds. That means that from your point of focus, as you stop down the depth of field does not extend equally from the point of focus. You gain more depth beyond the point of focus in the 1/3 to 2/3 ratio.

[Thomas René Sidor]

Originally Posted by clockdoc

Thanks for the detailed explanation of your shot. One point to make about focus in that depth of field advances towards the camera one-third and away from the camera lens two thirds. That means that from your point of focus, as you stop down the depth of field does not extend equally from the point of focus. You gain more depth beyond the point of focus in the 1/3 to 2/3 ratio.

Oh, I didn't know that - thanks for the tip?

Well, I tried some of your suggestions and the one below is what it resulted in. (Click for full size).



I decreased the shutter speed by 10x to 1/200 sec (I didn't notice any difference between 1/500 sec and 1/200 sec, and my flash's sync speed is 1/200 so I chose that one. As as somewhat unrelated question - how does the flash react when I set it to 'high speed sync' - what does it do different as compared to the normal sync speed?), used only the flash and a reflector and (although the point of impact is a little off center) it turned out quite well. As for the sharpness in the full size - is it what I could expect?

EXIF:
Camera: Canon EOS 400D DIGITAL
Exposure Time: 1/200 sec
Aperature: f 10
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 100 mm
Flash: Flash: Fired

[Thomas René Sidor]

I found a really good explanation of the 'high sync speed' feature at: http://webs.lanset.com/rcochran/flash/hss.html

Now I see why I thought that the 1/200 seemed better than the 1/500

[clockdoc]

You did well with your second shot and using the reflector. I have to admit that I do not surrently own a dSLR so have very little 'hands-on' experience with high speed sync. Recalling my days with the mechanical 35mm cameras, the one I had used a curtain that travelled horizontally across the film path. If you used too high a shutter speed, part of the image would be black as the flash would go off when one of the curtains was opening but not all the way open. After reading your excellent link, it appears that with today's electronic shutters in digital cameras, the flash actually puts out a series of bursts but at a lower power. It would be interesting to run some tests as the author of the article did.
How did you time your shutter release for the exposure? How many exposures did you need to get the result you posted? Thanks again for the link.

[Thomas René Sidor]

You're right abot the flash bursts - it's about 50 KHz as far as I could figure out. I just misunderstood the 'hight speed' (as i reckon many do).

As for the timing of the shutter release - well, I actually didn't find it hard at all. I've got an wired remote shutter release, pressed the shutter half way down and released it fully when I felt it was time. I could even time it as to get the dropped object just as it hits the liquid, when it is got further down and when the liquid 'backfired'. Except for the occasional miss (what I found hardest was to get the nut in the center of the glass) all my shots got splashes of some sort - but unfortunately not all are as interesting as the ones above.

[sdjl]

Interesting thread and some nice photos Thomas.
Did you know your glass had a crack in it...