# Reflective Water Drop Photography



## Timoris

I have been trying to obtain Water Drop Reflection results such as these:
water drop reflection - Google Search






Based on a guide I found here:
How to put pretty stuff in those drops. Tutorial below: | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

So far, nothing spectacular.
What I need to know is how would I go about coaxing water drops?
I've been trying to "deposit" them on stems and leaves with a small spoon, but they mostly just drip off wherever I have been placing them. Too much water and dripping, not enough and no spheres.

Secondly, is there any way to obtain bigger drops? A small plunger? Diluting sugar in the water?

But, definitely, how do I place adequate drops where I need them? A way which is both feasible and easily repeatable would be very helpful.


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## Fern

Light stalking has great topics and even instructions.  Here is a "how to" on your subject: Light Stalking » How to Photograph Water Drops.  I have not tried it myself.


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## Johnboy2978

Here's an attempt I had a couple years ago.  I used an eye dropper to place the droplets where I wanted them.  I found that different types of flower stems have different abilities to hold the drop in place.  This is a leaf from an aloe plant.  The "flower" is actually from a Mr. Potato head accessory since I shot it mid winter with no vegetation around.  It's pretty tricky at first b/c the droplet becomes a second lens that you have to focus.  Once you get the ballpark of where things need to be placed, you can add more and more droplets.  You can get pretty creative w/ this.  Good luck


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## Zev Steinhardt

I've had similar problems.  I've tried to use a spray bottle, a little eye dropper and a few other options to get the drops where I wanted them.  Sometimes it seems like it's just hit or miss.  I did notice a difference between the various surfaces that are used... for example, on a branch of an avocado plant, I could often get several small drops to form a line (although, if I wait to long, the drops "migrate" from the top of the branch to the underside), but I could never get a large drop.  Other times, however, I could get a leaf to take a large drop, like in this shot:






Unfortunately, I don't remember what leaf I used for that shot.

Zev Steinhardt


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## Zev Steinhardt

Fern said:


> Light stalking has great topics and even instructions.  Here is a "how to" on your subject: Light Stalking » How to Photograph Water Drops.  I have not tried it myself.


 
Thanks.  Unfortunately, that's a tutorial on how to create drops to capture them in mid-splash.  That's not what the OP and I are looking for.  

Zev Steinhardt


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## Timoris

Zev Steinhardt said:


> Fern said:
> 
> 
> 
> Light stalking has great topics and even instructions.  Here is a "how to" on your subject: Light Stalking » How to Photograph Water Drops.  I have not tried it myself.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Thanks.  Unfortunately, that's a tutorial on how to create drops to capture them in mid-splash.  That's not what the OP and I are looking for.
> 
> Zev Steinhardt
Click to expand...


See, I wanted to say that but thought it might sound rude. Also, there is a link to a Reflective drop gallery (which I believed he wanted to link to) but that just leads back to the link I posted on top...
Eye dropper, I will definitely try that (currently scourging the house for one) Any more tips and tricks would be helpful indeed! :-D


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## Fern

Sorry about that, her original picture was a splash in a puddle...


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## Timoris

Alright! So I have some first positive results.

However, I am having some issues.

Firstly, I am using a 50mm Prime f/1.8 Canon lens (as seen here) so I can not not get the focus needed when up close. What you are currently seeing has been cropped from 100%, not zoomed. I am having the same trouble with details / Close focus with my 18-55mm and *cough* 120-400mm Sigma (It was worth a shot...)

1- Which lens would I use to get the up close detail I am seeing from others? My f/1.8 50mm prime just does not seem to be able to focus from close. Keeping in mind I also have a 1.6 cropper Sensor. How do I obtain clear shots as with the above daisies?

Actually, that's pretty much it for now. Boiling sugar into equal parts water thickened it just a little, although not much. Trying to find the proper plant / leaf / anything to get nice droplets. Coating in Wax (hydrophobic) just makes the water run off and gives TINY drops, no good.

As for the slight noise, I was using ISO 800 on my T2i, a non issue with sunlight.



(Yes, it's a Guppy. I wanted to capture fish within a drop.)



AH!
2- Focus. I am doing manual focus (image within drop) and am seeing variations of focus within said drops. Meaning sometimes the top / head of Fish/Globe would be in focus but the bottom part not. The Daisies and flowers seem to have lots of distance variation, so why am I having problems focusing with the drops? Is it because it's not Glycerine and thus my drops are not big enough? Is it my aperture? Because even at f/6 to f/8 I was having this issue.

What lenses / settings are you using for these pictures?

Oh. Glycerine is Lube.
It's Lube, folks.
Glycerine is Lube.


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## Bitter Jeweler

Just to clarify, it is not a reflective water drop, it is, I believe displaying refraction.

I didn't read what was in those drops as fish till I read that it was. Super idea! A bigger rounder drop will probably show it better. 
Thanks for continuing to post your efforts and recipies!


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## Timoris

Bitter Jeweler said:


> Just to clarify, it is not a reflective water drop, it is, I believe displaying refraction. (...)


Thank you, edited.


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## Bitter Jeweler

I wonder if glycerine would be effective for this project.
Hmmmm...You got me thinkin'.


Hahaha! You edited your post and mention glycerine. Have you read that it works?

I think the focus varies because of the shape of the drop, convex on one end, concave on the other.


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## Timoris

Bitter Jeweler said:


> (...)
> 
> I think the focus varies because of the shape of the drop, convex on one end, concave on the other.



(Hahaha on first part! :-D)

*headsmack* of course. The angle at which light refracts off of the drop varies vis a vis the image sensor. Makes sense.

OH! About bringing my camera in closer to the drop, I just remembered that my wide angle can go pretty close, yet using a wide angle lens defeats the purpose of bringing the camera closer to maintain a narrow line of sight.

I've heard about reversing the lens into the camera body, how would that work? I've read threads on here that deal with the subject and I am reading it as "Mount your Prime 50mm into your 120-400mm, but the opposite of how you usually mount them." Which only makes me do a double take.
Currently searching the Internet for how it is done.

There is also talk of extension tubes, would this be a better option for my prime lens?
(EOS 550D / T2i, with f/1.8 50mm prime)

Sorry if I have many questions, after all knowledge is power (And that's half the Battle!)


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## Bitter Jeweler

Extension tubes are a great inexpensive solution!

Canons 25mm tube is expensive, Kenkos (sp?) are cheaper but decent quality.


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## Timoris

Obtained a no-name brand 3 part Extension Tube for 6.50$ from eBay in Hong Kong. Advertised as "No loss of image quality!" If it works, GREAT! If not, HEY! Only 6.50$! I most likely could still find a use for them. Lensbaby anyone?

Will try reversing the lens tomorrow, will report back results.

Would greatly appreciate settings and lenses used for the above pictures.

A great many thanks,
-Timoris


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## Zev Steinhardt

Timoris said:


> Would greatly appreciate settings and lenses used for the above pictures.


 
For my photo:

Canon XSi, MP-E 65mm macro lens, f/16, 10 seconds, ISO 400

Zev Steinhardt


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## Timoris

Ok, wow, this was educative.

Alright, SO, I free-lens'ed reversed my f/1.8 50mm prime and learned several things:
1- This totally works
2- The further the object is from the drop, the harder it is to focus in on it. It's like trying to balance a dime on its edge. You are much better off playing with the height of the subject than its distance.
3- The flatter the object, the better the focus, this should be a no-brainner. (Actually not entirely true, the more parallel to the image sensor, the better the over-all focus)
4- Shoot in Tv, adjust shutter speed for light. Do not go below 1/100, nay, 1/150, especially while free-lensing (even if your camera body is upon a tripod)
5- You are MUCH better off with a high aperture lens than one which can zoom in. Reason being, light is your friend and trying focusing with both zoom and focus counter rotating to each other. You need three hands, or a Reversing ring (Which should take several weeks to arrive - free shipping from Hong Kong and eBay.)

One thing I am still having trouble with is the clarity within the Drop itself. I do not have 1,000$ to spend on a micro lens, the extension tubes have yet to arrive (and my local ------is out of stock for Canon reversing rings). Untill these last two arrive, do you have any tips for this?

*I.E.:* I see a lot of depth within the Drop itself, how can I do / do you do that?

Onto the results! Although I restrain from naming my pictures, these just screamed "Time is Running Out". I love how ghostly they feel. First, as I would like to present it, then cropped to show more detail:


Initially, I had started by testing this technique with a Pineapple (Because, you know... Pineapple), thus point 3 and 4:
Kept as a drop down for easier viewing. - Nay, no spoiler tag, kept as a link,


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## Raccoon

I was playing around with this last week and got some interesting results. I wasn't really aiming for getting that "small world inside a water drop" shot, I kind of just happened. 

I used a vintage Pentax 55mm (M42 mount) with 50mm (or so) extension tubes on a Canon 1000D. Macro on a budget! Here is a 100% crop of one of the shots:







The lens is not quite sharp at f/1.8, so this is shot at f/4 (1/500 sec, handheld). I placed a tulip behind the straw and it shows up clearly inside the water drop. I took a few more shots also, you can read more about it here if you are interested (I hope a little shameless self-promotion is alright):

Erik Moberg's personal homepage - Now with irregular updates! - Fake Raindrops Macro Photography


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## KmH

Timoris said:


> I have been trying to obtain Water Drop Reflection results such as these:
> water drop reflection - Google Search


Probable copyright infringement, and no doubt a forum rules/regs violation: http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/faq.php


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## Ryan L

Timoris - I think what KMH is trying to say is to post a link to someone elses work, don't post something that doesnt belong to you. Just a newbie mistake.


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## dmtx

Timoris said:


> I have been trying to obtain Water Drop Reflection results such as these:
> .


 
I wonder if that image is real or post-processed.  Most suspicious of the reflection in the large drop.

Also do not use only water, but water + some other binding material.  Also try oil or plain soap.

Also, the material to which the water is applied makes a big difference.  I have a garden plant that is stunning when wet.  None of my other plants hold the water in the same way.  Why, I have no idea.


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## Timoris

Thank you very much Raccoon! Your Guide is helpful and I will try this out as soon as I can.

As for the Linking, I thought the Google Image search reference would have covered it, sorry.


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## Timoris

I have extension tubes, I have been trying different variations with my 50mm prime, I am following exactly what is being told, but I just can't seem to get proper focus inside the droplet due to curvature. There is a lot of Arberation and distortion, I can not get the nice, smooth, uniform focus as seen from others.

Do optical physics behave differently in Canada? Because I have no idea what I am doing wrong.


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## Timoris

HA! Finally.

It was my aperture. Needed it closed tight. Seemed obvious enough once I thought about it. Did not think it would apply to a refractive curved surface.
Now to actually get a _nice_ shot 



EOS T2i
f/16
2 sec
ISO 800
Reversed 50mm Prime Lens
With Extension tube


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## mrpink

You have the image, but have lost the "water drop effect".  In the other photos, you can tell right away that it is a water drop.








p!nK


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## Timoris

What about this one? (Different Picture)



EOS T2i
f/16
2 sec
ISO 800
Reversed 50mm Prime Lens on a 50mm Extension tube


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