Water Droplets

Inspired by the short article explaining how Roger Hammond achieved his great water droplet pictures I thought I would give it a go.

A lot of luck seems to be involved and it is certainly a quick way of making a big increase on the camera shutter count but was great fun, particularly as I should have been doing something else.

I found it difficult to get the low-down camera position that Roger adopts without seeing the edge of the water container. I also liked to see a bit more of the surface disturbance so I eventually set the camera a bit higher although in some I still caught the edge of the container.

While initially I converted the images to B&W I felt that this made some of the images feel a bit flat so for these I have left the colour in.

I took 167 images which I whittled down to 40 and here are four of my favourites:

[IMG]http://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w20/GlynM/Water%20Droplets/IMGP4479-p2-800.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w20/GlynM/Water%20Droplets/IMGP4511-p1-800.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w20/GlynM/Water%20Droplets/IMGP4601-P2-800.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w20/GlynM/Water%20Droplets/IMGP4588-p2-800.jpg[/IMG]

There is obviously still lots of room for improvement and many more things to learn but starting off has been fun. One thing I did learn very quickly is not to use a glass dish with "Pyrex" stamped on the bottom .


Shot with the Pentax-K-5 and the Samsung equivalent of the DFA100 Macro.
Manual Focus with a Samsung SEF-36PZF flash.
Shot in near darkness in my garage .

Glyn

Brilliant, Glyn, & welcome to the club!

These are smashing, particularly with the colours retained, quite different to than mine against the white card.

I'll have to try the higher viewpoint as well. It's most effective in that you're not so reliant on the form of the actual drop, having the surface pattern/texture as well.

3, 2, 4 & 1, in order for me. My favourite being no.3, with the reflection which is beautiful.

And, as you say, it's good fun!!

Let's do some more.......


Roger.

Hi Roger,

Many thanks for the inspiration. I would not have thought of trying this without the article and looking at the pictures in your gallery.

I did follow many of the hints in the article. The plastic bag approach worked really well although initially I put too much water in and got a stream instead of drips

I used four bits of A3 white paper taped together as a long, wrap-around, background but perhaps it was not quite tall enough. The subdued lighting and low power flash were also great hints.

I used a glass dish in a stainless steel tray and I guess this is why I got a lot of mid-grey background. I'm not too sure where the colour came from but I guess it was reflections of the junk in my garage.

I am definitely hooked and will certainly give it another go.

Thanks again,

Glyn