Water Droplet Collision Photo
Sep, 2013Views
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Behind The Lens
Location
I took this photo in the basement of my parent's house when I was 15. I had a DIY set-up that consisted of a baking pan, an eye dropper, etc.Time
The photo was taken in the evening. It's important to have as little lighting as possible in the room in which you are shooting in.Lighting
When taking photos like this, it's important to have no light in the room you're shooting in. That way, when the photo is triggered, the flashes freeze the quick motion of the water moving. The four flashes release a quick burst of light (about 1/32,000 of a second long) to freeze the motion. This, as well as many other factors, makes the entire process very trial and error. Sometimes the flashes will fire out of sync and cause the photo to be blurred. Sometimes, I trigger the camera too early or too late. When I take these photos, it starts with me squeezing the eye dropper twice, then triggering the camera, which triggers the flashes, and if I'm lucky, then the resulting photo is of two water droplets colliding. The entire process is manual. However, as of recent, I purchased a system that allows me to automate the process so it won't take as long to get great photos.Equipment
I used a Nikon D3100 with a 55-300mm lens and an extension tube for the macro effect. I used four Neewer TT560's for the lighting. The blurred out background is actually a print of another photo I took. The photo is of a close-up silhouette of a dandelion back lit by the sunrise.Inspiration
My interest in photography began when I was 13 and took photos with my iPod Touch. I would explore photography online and find works by people like Corrie White that sparked my interest. I began with humble set ups that included "High-speed photography" apps I would download to my iPod and small cups of water with food coloring that I set up in my bedroom. I got some simple, badly-lit shots. As comparatively bad as the pictures may have been, they inspired 13-year-old me to do an excessive amount of research about the equipment I would need. Slowly but surely, I improved my set-up and equipment to create pictures like this.Editing
I usually do a few contrast and brightness changes and remove some of the pesky spare water droplets flying everywhere.In my camera bag
My bag typically holds my D3100 with my Nikon 50mm 1.8 and Nikon 55-300mm as well as a single flash and a backup battery for my camera.Feedback
These photos take time to capture so you have to have the patience and the commitment to make it work. You will probably also need some money. If you go for the DIY set up, you'll need quite a bit of time for trail and error and about $50-$100. You can always go the automated route and purchase a water droplet photography kit (yes, they exist). That, however, will cost you about $400-$500, but will save you quite a bit of time. For the DIY route, one or two good flashes should suffice. Simply googling "DIY Water Droplet Photography setup" should result in several example photos to give you ideas for what will work for you. Corrie White has a pretty thorough eBook about her process and everything she uses. It's worth purchasing. Another thing to remember is that you have to figure out what works well for you. It will likely take a lot of googling to find ideas that work for you. There is a lot of easily accessible information on the internet, so make sure you use it.
