Drops of color in water
Since my birthday (when I got that book I mentioned in my last post) I wanted to try out some different ideas for photography. Last post was trying out ideas with bokeh, this time I wanted to do drops.
I’ve been fascinated my some of those water or coffee drop photos (like these ones here from Irene Muller) or even the one from Avital on her blog here: http://apinnick.wordpress.com/2010/04/07/my-favourite-march-photos/
Well I don’t have a great flash set up yet. So I worked with the daylight only. As I don’t have any fancy set-up to control the timing of the drops it took me hundreds of shots to get a few with the actual drop hitting the water. In fact it was pretty amazing how every time I pressed the trigger it managed to take the drop falling and almost hitting the water and then the next photo was after it had it.
Well a few pictures turned out ok and this was one of them.
If anyone knows less about this than me you can learn how to do it here:
1. Recipient with water or other liquid.
2. In my case I had food coloring that I could drop into the water. I changed the colors to get this effect and let it go for a few drops. However the water soon becomes pretty messy and needs to be changed.
3. Camera on a tripod. Focus is actually a tricky thing here, you need to ensure the area where the drop will land is going to be in focus. I did that manually as the autofocus kept giving me bad readings.
4. Set the camera on continuous shoot, when the drop is about to leave, push the trigger and shoot as much as you can.
5. Cross what ever fingers aren’t busy hoping at least one shot will capture the moment.
And voila.
Martin Soler Photography 
Beautiful! Thanks for the food colouring idea. I have some bottles around the house that I never use. I’m curious — why the high ISO?
The high ISO was a test to try and speed up the capture and keep it light enough since I had to flash.
That’s pretty amazing… love the mixing of the colours here…
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Hi Martin,
The idea is very good.
The instant of photography is ok but the focus and the aperture is not perfect.
The background is perfect.
repeat the operation for an excellent photography.
If you want, see my picture on my website, i have shot very beautiful water drop.
For my picture, i have used a water drop detector for photography.
This water drop detector is easy to make and for a low cost.
I explain this with picture on my website : rienquepourlesyeux.free.fr
Thanks for your great comments and for your suggestion Thierry. Not sure what the aperture problem is that you are referring to. Yes you are totally right on the focus which seems slightly out. Great site you have, hm the detector may be cheap but building that gadget is slightly too much for me. Again thanks for your comment and tips.
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Great shot, Martin. This kind of photography can also be taken by setting your camera to Bulb, it will not only capture the light but also the high speed movement (in this case, the falling drops hitting the water surface and so on). I haven’t really tried this yet, but I am considering it. Here’s a sample of drops and water shotting using bulb:
and this other sample of orange falling into water (quite interesting if you ask me) :
http://blog.one8zero.com/tag/high-speed-photography/
I had looking this website on : http://rienquepourlesyeux.free.fr/Detecteur%20de%20gouttes%20d'eau/Drops%20of%20water%20detector.htm
and it is very interresting
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