lboskovic

Lime Splash

Lime, falling into a keg full of fresh water

Lime, falling into a keg full of fresh water
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Canon EOS 7D

settings

Aperture f/10.0 ISO 100 Shutter 1/1

upload_date

May, 2014

Views

373

Likes

+10

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Behind The Lens

Location

I took this photo in the middle of my living room. It was a short personal project that my girlfriend Ana, who is also a photographer, and I decided to do in a minute, so we din't rent the studio or anything, we just started immediately.

Time

We started to prepare for the shooting after midnight, one minute after we got the actual idea. Then, the destruction of our living room lasted until dawn.

Lighting

The lighting was the key aspect of this shot. It wasn't just about positioning the light, but also about meeting the technical limits for a high-speed shot. For those new to high-speed photography, shots like this one are NOT achieved by the shutter speed of the camera, as commonly believed. Instead of achieving speed with the camera shutter, speed is achieved with short flash duration from studio strobes, or even better with speedlights. We did this shot with three Canon 580EX-II flashes on lowest power setting possible (1/128). On this power setting 580EX-II has a flash duration of approximately 1/30.000th of a second (yes, that fast). I wanted to do this on small apertures, f8 and smaller, to have more things in focus, but I still had to keep the flashes at 1/128, and ISO as low as 100, so I moved the softboxes as close to the subject as possible... and they all ended wet, of course. Totally worth it! In an almost completely dark room, the shutter speed was set on 1 second, which was enough for Ana to drop the lime in the keg full of water, while I trigger the flashes with a remote at the exact moment. We failed time and again until we got this shot. There were many shots that were close enough, but we wanted the water splash to be at least excellent.

Equipment

This was shot with my old Canon 7D. I used a crop body because I wanted to get the the lens as far away from water splashes as I could, while still being close enough. The lens was a Canon EF 100mm f2.8 USM Macro borrowed from a friend (hence the fear from splashes lol) The rest was 3x Canon 580EX-II flashes, tripod, two 60x90cm softboxes, Pixel Opas radio triggers, and a living room ready for destruction.

Inspiration

Ana an I were talking about highspeed photos that night, and the way that speed is achieved in this case. We just decided to give it a try... immediately.

Editing

I almost never process my RAWs any further than those basic sliders in Lightroom / Camera Raw. A little bit of contrast and WB, maybe shadow and/or exposure slider a tiny bit. I love pure, clean and vivid photos, that is why I'm bound to Canon platform.

In my camera bag

For work, I use many different cameras and equipment that corresponds to the specific task, but normally I carry in my bag: Canon 5D Mark 1, Sigma 50 f1.4, Canon 85 f1.8, Canon 135 f2L, Canon A-1 with 50mm f1.4, rolls of film flying around everywhere, and recently I got a Fujifilm XPro1 with a 35mm f1.4... and I like it so far. If I had to choose one thing that I couldn't live without, it would be the Sigma 50mm f1.4 (the old model).

Feedback

Well, most of the advice are the specifics that I noted about the lighting. High-speed is pure technical photography, so knowing your equipment and possibilities is crucial. But in the end, a good high-speed shot can be done with a Chinese YongNuo flash, cheap optical trigger and a 10 year old rebel with kit lens, so, everyone can do it! If you are willing to try something similar, be ready for mess. Get some floor and furniture covers, but even more important protect your equipment. If you have a house, do it on the lawn in the middle of the night, it's gonna be far more painless. Another very important advice is: adopt a cat. Cats are awesome!

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lboskovic

lboskovic

Lime Splash

Lime, falling into a keg full of fresh water

Behind The Lens

See more amazing photos, follow lboskovic

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