Water Drop Tutorial (no Flash required)

[LearnMyShot]

Earlier I made a post here about shooting water splash without flash. This time around we tried to shoot a single drop. Without the use of flash
here is what I got:


1. Set camera to 1/1000 sec shutter speed or above, to freeze motion
2. Since you are lighting the surface of the water , the light is reflective and exposure requires a lot of light.
3. To get the shot above I used 6 - 120w halogen spot lamps (available at any hardware store)
4. Pre-focus your camera to the spot where the drop will hit, and set your camera to manual focus, shoot a lot of takes...
5. I also used red and blue gel for color effect, and green food coloring in water. Experiment with different colors.
Setting for this image are: iso 400, shutter: 1/1000 sec, f 5.6
6. for more details you can see my step by step video:

How to photograph a water droplet without flash


I'll be happy to answer your questions.

[ttaa]

thanks for the toturial
but i see the speed 1/1000 is too fast !
can you make the same shot with slower ?

[LearnMyShot]

Originally Posted by ttaa

thanks for the toturial
but i see the speed 1/1000 is too fast !
can you make the same shot with slower ?

Thank your question. I found that going below 1/1000 sec will result in motion blur. But you can try you might like that look.

[qoedjo]

robert,
why not lower the iso and use smaller aperture with more intense light?

[LearnMyShot]

Originally Posted by qoedjo

robert,
why not lower the iso and use smaller aperture with more intense light?

good question!
With Macro focusing smaller aperture would not get drop in focus. (it hard to get ti in focus at 5.6) maybe 5.0 is ok... but I would not go more open that that.

Iso is not a bad idea, but I have 3 types of cameras . Hasselblads with backs (the backs i have only have iso 50 or 100) canon 7d has low noise and would get away with iso 800. but i used that camera to record the video.... so I was left with older 20d to actually shoot the drop
so if you have newer camera you can use iso 800 and have 3 lights instead of 6.