Super easy water droplets

[GreatMoloko]

Stacked some plates in the sink then put construction paper down and a large clear glass bowl on top of that. Construction paper around the sides of the sink as well. Crank the water on to fill the bowl almost to the top then slow it down to a steady drip. Grab the camera, set it to manual aim for around 1/250 shutter speed. I tweaked with the aperture a bunch as well as trying out various settings on my internal & external flash units. Then took them into lightroom, cut the bunch down from 391 to 28 and did more edits then I can (or care to) remember to the lot of them. A lot of cropping and noise reduction though.

Read a more detailed write up + more pictures on my blog. Reddish Mercury: Water Droplets

[Paul690]

I had a go at this a while back need to have another go. It is a great clear and sharp shot, but i feel would of been even better without the bowl rim in background....!

Love the colours ....

[Shane91877]

Love it! Thanks for this idea! I'm new to this forum, but am excited at the amount of information people discuss and share on here. Looking forward to chatting with you fine folks.

Shane

[LynnG]

OK, so the house has gone to pot today..this really is addicting!

[KimbaNYC]

Ughhhh!!!
I have been trying to do this for the last 45mins and no luck. I am doing something wrong. The setting is on MANUAL...right? What is the ISO? f-stop and anything else? Thanks so much!

[GreatMoloko]

ISO was mostly around 400, I varied it a lot.

F-Stop was ALL over the place, I tried all kinds of different settings. Plus the ones with flash vs no flash were of course very different.

The best recommendation I have is to relax, breath, and keep trying. Try every setting your camera will let you at.

Be sure to be set to continuous firing or whatever the technical term is.

Try varying the speed of the water, the sweet spot I found was to turn it off then very slowly move it back on till it got to a steady dropping speed. Sit there for a minute and kinda mentally time the drops.

I took 400 some pictures which resulted in 28 "Good" ones and about 5 great ones.

You'll get it soon enough!

[Mukndruk]

Sorry to sound a bit stupid. What is "construction paper"? That must be term used in the USA that we do not use here in the RSA.

Thanks for the great idea. What lens did you use. I am thinking of using a 50mm prime.

[GreatMoloko]

Think of it as thick sturdy colored paper.

I used an 18-55 lens, but a 50 prime should be great as well.

[KimbaNYC]

ROFL!!!
You are right...I need to breathe...LOL!!!
I will try again.

PS - What do you mean when you say " 50 prime"????

[Murray Warner]

I enjoy this forum and trying all these new to me things as I am new to it all. I did some water drops a while back but never turned out all that great partly due because I never took the time to make such a nice backgroud. Is this done with a tripod? This inspired me to retry with a better background Thanks.