Splash
Tomato splash , using a sound activated flash trigger.
Tomato splash , using a sound activated flash trigger.
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Dec, 2013Views
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Behind The Lens
Location
This photo was taken on a very wet Sunday at my home in Cawdor. It seemed like a good project for a wet day. It also meant that I got to play with my new sound activated trigger for my flash.Time
I tinkered about with this set from 8 am and finally got to somewhere that i liked around eleven am. Which meant by the time I had processed them it would be lunch time ,happy days.Lighting
All the ambient light was blocked off by drawing the window blinds down and keeping lights off between shots. I had two speed lights set up , one a 430 exII was connected to a mic via a sound trigger. This meant I could set a longer exposure. Once I had dropped the tomatoes in to a small fish tank filled with clean water , the noise of the splash set the flash off capturing the shot and reducing the misses. The camera will only expose the image for the duration of the flash. I had the flashes blocked with some black card at one side to save any light spilling onto the background. The focus was set by dipping a ruler in the middle of the tank , once set I switched to manual focus.Equipment
I used a canon 5D mark III and used a 70 - 200mm f/2.8 IS from about 15ft. The flash units was a 430 exII speed-lite and a yongnuo 460, A sound activated trigger with a boundary mic which I got off ebay for £20. The camera was mounted on a Manfrotto 350B tripod.Inspiration
I had recently been messing around with some smoke photography and wanted to progress. I had seen some images on view bug and they inspired me to have a go at them.Editing
I used Lightroom to do the basic edits like cropping and exposure adjustments then into photoshop layers and cloned out some marks and smears on the tank also some of the bubbles where the flash had bounced off blowing them out. I used the high pass filter to sharpen on the strongest blending mode linear dodge.In my camera bag
I have downsized my bag as I was carrying to much gear and now use a Tamrac. I have two bodies the Canon 5D MKIII and a crop-body Canon 500D, I now only carry three lenses a 70-200mm f/2.8 IS II , 24-70mm f2.8 and a 50mm f/1.8. The 600 ex-rt with a ST-E3-RT transmitter and a Sekonic L358 light meter. Filters I only use the circular polariser and the ten stop ND. Apart from that just the usual spare batteries remote trigger for the camera's , rubber bands and clips. If I dig deep enough I can usually find some mints as well.Feedback
Advice on this type of shot would be to make sure you block off all the ambient light as well as making sure your flash is not spilling onto your background. You can use a trial and error system if you don't have the sound trigger so patience is the order of the day and take loads of images till you get what you want. Have some old towels handy as water and electronics don't mix. I put a poly bag over my speed-lites just in case.
