# Water Drop Photography - Setup/Tips



## kirbym2 (Aug 18, 2011)

Hi All,

So, finding it tough to physically leave my house to get out and shoot, so thought I'd try my hand at Water Drop Photography.  Now that I've mastered the art of my CLS feature (D7000 & sb600), I'm wondering what an ideal set up is.  I don't really have any other lighting.

Do I use the sink, a glass of water, etc?  Do you use the faucet to drip, a syringe, other methods?

Lastly - Ideal camera/flash settings - what's worked for you?  Any examples would be great!

Thanks!


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## Stradawhovious (Aug 18, 2011)

I have had great succes hanging a ziplock bag from a boom arm on a light stand, and poknig a little hole in it.  That usually makes for a consistant drip.  I have also found that if you poke a hole in the side of the bag, then let it run down to the corner you get a more consistan result than if you just poke a hole in the bag.

Last time (and you kind of have to ahve the materials for this) I cut the corner off of the ziplock, then used a pastry bag tip crammed full of paper towel in the end.  Made for some great big huge consistant drops.

I have heard of people putting glycol or glycerine in the water to thicken it up somewhat as well.

Don't be afraid to use more than one flash, or different backgrounds, or backlight the drop, different angles, or...... or...... or....... 

really that's what this exercise was to me.  Playing with light.

As far as timing, well I hooked the strobes up to radio triggers, and used a remote to set off the camera.  It was a guessing game at first, but after a while you get the timing down.

Here are some of my results.

Shot with one strobe, bounced off of a piece of gift wrap as a background.







Shot with the pop up flash flagged and directed at a holographic gift bag taped up behind the bowl.






Shot with a SB-125 camera left with green gel and a SB-600 behind with a blue gel towards a piece of white piece of paper...... this is straight out of the camera with the exception of a crop


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## kirbym2 (Aug 18, 2011)

LOVE # 3!  What sort of basin are you using to hold the water?  Looks like practice practice practice is key here... What sort of shutter speed am I looking at?

Thanks!


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## D-B-J (Aug 18, 2011)

Two sb600's pointed at background, bag with hole in it. This can give you a general idea.   EDIT:  Flash on left is an old old one.  Not an sb600


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## Stradawhovious (Aug 18, 2011)

kirbym2 said:


> LOVE # 3! What sort of basin are you using to hold the water? Looks like practice practice practice is key here... What sort of shutter speed am I looking at?
> 
> Thanks!



Thanks!

#1 was a 10 gallon fish tank, #2 was a shallow cereal bowl and #3 was a straight walled whiskey glass.

You can use anything that holds water.

Shutter speed.... I used my fastest sync speed at 1/250.  With the strobe that seemed to work just fine.


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## kundalini (Aug 18, 2011)

I tend to use multiple flashes, since I have them, and I prefer to get a little more even with the water surface. Through many trials and many errors, having the colored background further away from the focal point is a benefit. I also like to use my Nikkor 105mm f/2.8 macro lens to get as close as possible. I've used a water bottle hanging from a boom arm and suspended with a ball bungee for the most part.

Setup:






Results:












Setup:






Results:














Yes, lots of practice and lots of misses, but ocassionally you get a keeper.

Also be aware that the setup shots may not be (and probably aren't) the exact same setup as the result shots.


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## analog.universe (Aug 18, 2011)

I messed around with these a while back as well.  I had 2 speedlights, one on either side of my kitchen sink, set to their lowest power setting, triggered by pc cords.  The lower power settings have shorter flash durations, so you can freeze faster motion.  Using a series of clamps, I suspended an eyedropper over a pan full of water (9" x 13" inch I think?) in the sink below.  I had a piece of foam core board to provide a neutral backdrop.  After that it was just experimenting with timing and lighting angles and colored gels.  As for camera settings, I set the shutter to the highest flash sync speed (1/250), so that my flash would be the only lights I had to worry about.  Aperture was 7.1, because these are basically macro shots... that got me just barely enough field to catch a whole splash, sometimes not even.  ISO was at 500 due to the low power from the flashes.  I fired the shots with one hand on a cable release and the other on the eye dropper.


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## HagenDaaz (Aug 18, 2011)

Absolutely gorgeous! Your setups look really complicated, I was planning to do this with a water bottle and an assistant


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## Stradawhovious (Aug 18, 2011)

The most important thing to remember with your setup........ Be creative. As long as you are able to create water drops, there is no wrong way.


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## katerolla (Aug 18, 2011)

watch Gavin Hoey


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## kirbym2 (Aug 19, 2011)

First attempts... let me know what you think.  I'm a little disappointment with the focus on 2.  Played around with Photoshop with some different hues, and added a curves adjustment to make it pop a little more.  So appreciative of all the tips!

1



Water Drops-6 copy by McFlickr81, on Flickr

2



Water Drops-5 copy by McFlickr81, on Flickr


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## kirbym2 (Aug 19, 2011)

*disappointed... my late night grammar is a little off


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## wlbphoto (Aug 19, 2011)

katerolla said:


> watch Gavin Hoey



i love all is tutorials he does great work showing people how to do thing ...


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## JWellman (Aug 19, 2011)

Thanks for the info and video links! I've worked with water before but not with this set-up. Oh boy, something new to try!!  

I love the purple Kirby!


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## lyonsroar (Aug 19, 2011)

Good first attempt.  Get lower though.


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## bennielou (Aug 19, 2011)

Nice!  These are really well done.  I love the colors as well.


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## kirbym2 (Aug 19, 2011)

lyonsroar said:


> Good first attempt. Get lower though.



Thanks for the feedback - Actually this was my one frustration/takeaway with my setup.  I was sort of limited in how low I could go.  I had my drip bag hanging from a low hanging chandelier, into a silver mixing bowl on the table.  The bowl was fairly deep - I probably should have filled it up to the top, allowing me to get a bit lower.  Next time for sure!


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## kwik (Aug 19, 2011)

Stradawhovious said:


> Thanks!
> 
> #1 was a 10 gallon fish tank, #2 was a shallow cereal bowl and #3 was a straight walled whiskey glass.
> 
> ...



Did you say whiskey?


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## kundalini (Aug 19, 2011)

kwik said:


> Did you say whiskey?


Sorry, but the watchword is tequila......







The link doesn't seem to work. search youtube for peewee herman - tequila (originally by The Champs)


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## JWellman (Aug 19, 2011)

Man was this set-up a lot easier than what I was trying before! I did things a little different and had to improvise with what I had. I used different colors of scrapbooking paper not only as a background, but also under my glass dish. Since I do not have the means to take my flash off my camera, I left it on. I used ETTL at 35mm bouncing off the paper background and also the black backdrop that I had hung. I also had two lights/umbrellas at the table to assist with lighting. I was shooting with my 28-135mm lens on manual. 1/250, f8.0, ISO 500. I edited the photos by adding color variations to them using Lightroom.

Thanks again for the info!


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