Freeze water

[Revald]

When it comes to macro shots nothing beats a good "freeze shot" of water. It's a good starter shot that you rarely can go wrong with.

Pick your background wisely as it will reflect/shine through the water quite a bit. It is here the real experimentation and potential lies. Good lighting is second. I put two bare strobes left and right, right beside the camera. Put on my 100mm 2.8 macro lens and cranked off a few shots remotely while holding the garden hose close to the flower. Strobes were in fired in manual mode at 1/16 and 1/16 + 2/3. The sun was shining from a cloudless heaven as well.

Adding water to the shot is the easiest part. With a shutter speed of at least 1/200 or above you will freeze the motion quite well. Just take care not to hit your gear :-)

Afterwards the water in the photo was sharpened a bit and the background blurred a little. A slight increase in saturation of the water was also done to make it "pop out" a little.

[PRH]

very nice. The water looks like glass or ice

[lputman]

That is absolutely lovely! You said you had strobes on either side of the camera. Did you have an onboard flash also?

[southernbelle]

Gorgeous! The water looks like glass. Great job!

[Pixelfun1]

This is absolutely beautiful.
makes me want ot try it. Maybe one day when I figure out all the tech jargon.

[zetson]

I have just started experimenting with water shots myself. This was great. It's awsome how the water runs in the shape of an hour glass.

[RussHeath]

Great explanation and a very nice photo.

[Revald]

lputman: No, there were no onboard flash. I use the Cactus V2s radio triggers, and the trigger itself occupies the flash socket on top of the camera. Both flashes on each side were connected to the radio receivers and triggered that way (i.e. no ETTL, all manual flash settings.)

If you want to get into off camera flash photography I can recommend using the Cactus V2s triggers (try googling for them). They are super cheap, and if you try out a simple antenna modification (can also be found on google) you can extend the range and performance a lot. Buy a couple of old 2nd hand flashes, like the Nikon SB-24 or SB-28 (doesn't matter if you are a Canon user or otherwise, the radio triggers don't care, nor does your camera). Then let a whole new world open up to you. Interested in learning more? Then there is one site and one site only for that specific type of photography and that's http://strobist.blogspot.com.

Good luck. :-)
Jesper Revald

P.S. Thanks for the kind words everyone!

[Cemil97]

Very nice result - I like that. Thanks for sharing your technique.

[leeport]

Excellent shot. Nice background and nice effect. I love water shots. Thanks for the explaination also. Cheers!

Jeff