Experiment - water drop

[ionian]

Inspired by some shots I saw on 500px, I had a go at the water-drop-on-flower picture. I present this for discussion - I know it is by no means a great pic - but would appreciate some guidance for the future.

First of all I don't have a macro lens so used my 70-300 with some extension tubes. I lit with a brolly off-camera right, and used a low powered naked flash low and left shining up and through leaves and petals to add highlights. My key light was set VERY high - something like 1/2 power.

I used manual focus and tripod (VR was off) but found it very difficult to get a perfectly sharp image. I aided sharpness in post with a high pass filter.

I was surprised that at the depth of field I achieved despite a relatively wide aperture, and how much light I had to add. For the future I'll try again with the 50mm and tubes to get less depth, compose with a more interesting reflection in the water, and work on toning down the light that ended up being very hard despite the diffusion from the brolly.

Comments and help for the future will be very much appreciated - I realise this is a difficult shot, especially without dedicated gear, but I'm eager to try again with some advice ringing in my ears.

[chauncey]

Considering the gear used, you did quite well...getting a macro lens will open a whole new world.

[IzzieK]

Trust William -- you will learn a lot from him about water drop macro. I know I did. Some of his techniques are quite interesting. Just gotta look and look and form your own conclusion as to how he did it. I have not been wrong so far.

Anyway, good job, Simon. I like it that you got the exposure of the drop nicely round. It would help if you tidy up that right side by eliminating that extra petals there using your clone tool to brush the overexposure dot on the left and the other overexposed petals down the bottom...easily fixed. Or should I just concentrate on the drop and leave the composition alone?

[ionian]

Trust William -- you will learn a lot from him about water drop macro. I know I did. Some of his techniques are quite interesting. Just gotta look and look and form your own conclusion as to how he did it. I have not been wrong so far.

Anyway, good job, Simon. I like it that you got the exposure of the drop nicely round. It would help if you tidy up that right side by eliminating that extra petals there using your clone tool to brush the overexposure dot on the left and the other overexposed petals down the bottom...easily fixed. Or should I just concentrate on the drop and leave the composition alone?

Thanks Izzy, I'll have a look at William's work. All comments welcome - although the overexposed parts are, I think, a consequence of adding so much light generally. A light more to the front may have been better but would have created a stronger specular highlight in the drop. I need to lose the second light; that caused the overexposed petals at the bottom as I couldn't balance it with such a strong key light. I guess I need to get experimenting with light placement before I even think of getting the camera out.

[chauncey]

FWIW Simon, I do tend to cheat a lot...as an example, I will suspend a droplet in front of my
monitor displaying a flower image taken previously, then shoot the droplet...

[John 2]

Never used extension tube so I have no direct experience but it occurs to me that the you might be subject to the same problems that long lenses in general give you. You don't give us any Meta Data but DOF will need a smallish aperture (relatively large?) which in turn means longer shutter speed. Long lens plus extension tubes hanging on the end of your camera, even on a tripod (did you use a remote release?), therefore raises the possibility of camera shake due to mirror slap and auto focus movement. All guess work on my part but perhaps some thoughts for next time.

Compositionally, the brighter yellow of the stamens dominate for me. Perhaps a tighter crop?

[IzzieK]

Thanks Izzy, I'll have a look at William's work. All comments welcome - although the overexposed parts are, I think, a consequence of adding so much light generally. A light more to the front may have been better but would have created a stronger specular highlight in the drop. I need to lose the second light; that caused the overexposed petals at the bottom as I couldn't balance it with such a strong key light. I guess I need to get experimenting with light placement before I even think of getting the camera out.

Good idea! I think it is either Geoff or John (2) who taught me about cloning highlights in petals...or was it Grahame from Fiji? I think it is John...I learned so much techniques from members here, it is very hard to remember who I got some techniques from and sometimes I forgot to apply them until I saw what I uploaded...

[Sergio M.]

Simon, can't help you out with this but it looks like you've gotten good advice and information.
I admire your initiative to learn this type of photography. Any and all types of photography help hone our photographic abilities.
Nicely done.

Sergio

[Loose Canon]

Hi Simon,

Seems that you have already identified most the problems you have experienced. Overexposure being one of them. So I’ll add some generic thoughts about lighting that you (hopefully) already know/have done.

First, if you are shooting in a studio environment with flash, adding more or less light should not affect your shutter speed. You don’t adjust exposure with shutter. Set your shutter for max sync, or slightly below and leave it. Take a shot without firing the lights. You should get a black frame. This tells you ambient is not affecting the exposure.

You can control the light with aperture and/or your flash power settings. If you have a specific aperture you are going for then it’s all about flash power settings. The higher the aperture setting the more flash power required.

You should get relatively soft light with a brolly, but if using bare flash then that, of course, is going to mitigate the softness somewhat. You can put a piece of diffusion material in front of that bare flash. That can be a simple as a piece of paper wrapped around the flash (which will still give you some directionality) or even a light shower curtain (larger area= larger light source= softer light). You didn’t say if you are using a shoot-thru or bounce umbrella. If using bounce one tip is that you can open the umbrella only so much to get some directional control. It doesn’t necessarily have to be wide open all the time to work.

To get a balance that you like with more than one light or one light and reflector, take test shots; one light at a time, or one light without reflector. This will tell you where you may be over/under exposing. Then build your lighting by adding one light/reflector at a time and taking test shots the whole way.

Lighting with an umbrella modifier is cool, but does have some characteristics. Namely it throws light all over the place (see above brolly tip). When lighting, what you don’t light can be as equally important as what you do light. Flags (black pieces of foam board, cardboard, etc.) placed in strategic locations can help you control what you light and what you don’t.

Personally, I think flowers beg to be back-lit, at least to some degree. So I think you had the right concept with your second light. I’m a huge fan of adding additional lights for accenting. But that have to be tightly controlled to be effective. You never know. You may have needed your “key” light to be powered down and your backlight powered up. This is where building one light at a time shines (pun intended)! Not to mention where the fun comes in. I think you would find a myriad of different lighting “looks” by playing around with it.

I might also add that I’m amazed that you got the drop balanced so well. I have to wonder if it stayed put or did you have to add drops for each shot?

[John 2]

I must admit that I assumed the key light wasn't a flash but on re reading Simon's blurb ...............................

[ionian]

Thanks very much everyone - this is exactly the sort of conversation I was hoping for when starting this thread. To clarify a few of the queries:

I was in my studio (OK on my dining room table) and I was using a two-flash system. I was using a shoot-through brolly that was spewing light all over the place - I have reflective brollies so I'll try that as well next time, or use a smaller diffuser (I have a 7x5 inch mini softbox that I keep in my bag for close up or on-the-fly portraiture). As you can see, despite the brolly, the light ended up being very hard - which must be a consequence of the power I ended up using. It will be easier the next time because I'll have a better idea of what I want to achieve. I'll take some time to play with the lights before I even think about getting the camera out. I also have a cheap macro flash, but I think that will produce the wrong sort of highlight in the drop.

With regards to the drop - I got lucky and found a flat part of petal. I was surprised how easliy it stayed in place. I used a needle dropper bottle to create the drop (like this) which worked really well. It was so well situated that it was still there the next morning!

William - I LOVE the idea of using a picture to reflect through a drop - theoretically you could do that with anything and it has given me a great idea for a future photo, watch this space...

[mknittle]

Hi Simon,
It looks pretty good for the first try. looks like a really good starting point.

[bnnrcn]

Certainly nice for the first trial Simon Lovely colors and the droplet looks sharp enough. I would clone the petals at the bottom right corner though.