# A water crown and paint crown



## Travis F (Aug 17, 2010)

Just sharing.....

Are you tired of reading that in my posts yet? LOL

1 - Water Crown






2 - Paint Crown





Thanks for looking,
Travis


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## Travis F (Aug 20, 2010)

Nothing? Wondering how I can improve....

Just looking for feedback

Thanks,
Travis


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## Stephen.C (Aug 20, 2010)

No idea how to do these, so I can't really give you tips, but I think number one looks awesome!
Good job!


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## Markw (Aug 20, 2010)

I would say if youre going to shoot drops and youre going to have the reflection of said drop in your photo, have the whole reflection.  Also, get something to cover that on-camera flash!  The reflection from that is very distracting.  The paint crown could have been very successful, its a shame about all the distracting tectures and swirls, colors, etc all around it.  This distracts me from actually keeping my eye on the drop.  There's something about the angle that just seems off to me.  It might benefit you to get down to drop-level a tad bit more..

Hope I helped a little. Keep shooting!
Mark


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## Travis F (Aug 20, 2010)

Step #1 - Turn camera on

Step #2 - Pray

All joking aside, thanks for looking and commenting.

I am trying to figure out how to freeze the outbound droplets. They are tricky little buggers! I have my flash set to FP (high speed synch) mode and the shutter maxed at 1/8000th but the off shoots are always OOF due to motion.

Travis


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## Markw (Aug 20, 2010)

Here's what I mean:






Its a terrible edit, but your focus goes directly to the drop.

Mark


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## Travis F (Aug 20, 2010)

Markw said:


> I would say if youre going to shoot drops and youre going to have the reflection of said drop in your photo, have the whole reflection. Also, get something to cover that on-camera flash! The reflection from that is very distracting. The paint crown could have been very successful, its a shame about all the distracting tectures and swirls, colors, etc all around it. This distracts me from actually keeping my eye on the drop. There's something about the angle that just seems off to me. It might benefit you to get down to drop-level a tad bit more..
> 
> Hope I helped a little. Keep shooting!
> Mark


 

The flash was actually off camera, held directly above the impact point. That part aside, I like your suggestion about getting lower. Maybe that will help minimizing the hot points and also add a little more height to the crown. My wife would only hold the flash for so long, so I couldn't play around too much......

Thanks for the comments they are appreciated!
Travis


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## Markw (Aug 20, 2010)

I also appologize for editing in the first place.  I must have missed that you specified _not_ to do just that.  So, I appologize for that.  Next time, try bouncing the flash.  It works to bounce from the back, either side, or even the ceiling (if its low enough).  Ive bounced it off of a tri-fold project board (white) in back, and that worked quite well.  If you can get the flash mounted on a tripod, that would be nice too.  Looks like a re-shoot is on the horizon.  Keep going.  Youve found a good starting point! 

:thumbsup:
Mark


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## Travis F (Aug 20, 2010)

No worries with the editing! I'm not too concerned about these shots and need the help!

Come to think of it, I think that we tried a few with bounced flash off of a tri-fold like you mentioned. We didn't have much succes though, they came out rather dark.


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## Travis F (Aug 20, 2010)

Oops, forgot to mention; the edit looks nice and all but I would rather have selective focus via the lens and not with gaussian blur from PS. That sounds harsh as I read it back, but it's not meant to be at all... I hope you know what I mean .

Travis


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## Markw (Aug 20, 2010)

I completely understand what you mean. It was actually surface blur 

I would rather have seen selective focus from the lens as well. 

Mark


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## Derrel (Aug 20, 2010)

Harold E sends his regards from the other side!


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## Arkanjel Imaging (Aug 20, 2010)

The first pic definitely needed a little faster shutter.  A little bit of motion blur there.

Definitely agree with Marks focus and light comments on the pait crown.  Good start on that one.  I would try a more dramatic strobe location than directly above.  Try some both with/without diffusion too.


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## Buckster (Aug 20, 2010)

Just my opinion: I like the details in the paint crown surroundings, though it looks like the focus is a tad too far back; the front top edge of the crown seems a bit OOF.

Funny thing is, we're usually trying to get more DOF in our macros, not less, and here the consensus is that there's too much.  :thumbup:

All in all, very nicely done.


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## NateS (Aug 20, 2010)

It is really hard to comment and give critique without the exif data embedded into the photo.  If you are going to post photos for critique without that data then you should probably list that data in the post with each picture.

For example, I was going to comment that you need to stop down to get some better DOF as I would like to see the "crown/drop" all in focus instead of just one rim....but for all I know you shot these at f/30.


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## bazooka (Aug 20, 2010)

I like #2 except for the missed focus on the front edge and the strange reflection at the bottom.  The swirls work for me and complement the crown.

The shallow DOF works in #1 for me.  There are strange reflections at the bottom edge and a hot spot right in the middle that is distracting though.  Overall I've seen so many water drop pics that it gets old, but I hadn't seen a paint drop so it's my fave of the two.


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