Liquid Sculpture

[JK6065]

I let Martin Waugh's work inspire me to try something similar. Of corse mine is absolutely nowhere near his beautyful images but I like my attempt. What do you think?


1/2000s F/4.5 ISO-800 @38mm

The challenge for me was getting the right amount of light for this shutterspeed and getting the camera to focus at the right spot.

[rogerb]

The challenge for me was getting the right amount of light for this shutterspeed and getting the camera focussing at the right spot.

Great timing! I see you had to use a wide aperture to get the shutter speed up which resulted in a fairly shallow dof. It's a little soft and probably could use more color but I think it's an excellent attempt nonetheless. I wish mine would be this good

[JK6065]

Thank you Roger,
F/4.5 was the widest aperture I could use with my lens at this focal length and ISO 800 was about the highest I could use.
Yours can definitely be like this one. Make sure you have enough light available and you have enough time to take shots over an over again so the 'perfect one' is among your shots .
Have a look at liquidsculpture.com to see how it should be done

[Dave Humphries]

~ and ISO 800 was about the highest I could use. ~

Hi Jeroen,

I think I would be tempted to use a higher ISO (to allow smaller aperture for increased DoF) and use a Noise Reduction plug in to deal with the extra noise - the fortunate thing with this subject matter is that if you over-do the NR and lose surface detail, it looks even more smooth and glossy "win-win"

I think you get a few free goes with the say, Neat Image (my favourite) demo, just use them wisely but then, once hooked, you'll need to find about 30 USD for the Home Edition (well worth it IMHO).

Cheers,

[JK6065]

Hi Dave,
This shot at ISO-800 already has been treated in Neat Image for NR (a very useful tip you gave me before). So that's why I insisted on staying at 800. I'll try to find some extra light to work with on my next attempt. Nevertheless thanks for your tip.

[Jim B.]

Hi Jeroen,
Nicely done.I like to shoot water drops also.Here's a video on the technique I use.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwExpFDUC9Y It will show you how to get near perfect focus.
I'm getting very good results.I have a few pictures in my Macro gallery, if you care to look.

[Wirefox]

The challenge for me was getting the right amount of light for this shutterspeed and getting the camera to focus at the right spot.

mmm.... dip a pencil or ruler in the liquid where the drop will land auto focus on that and then switch the lens to manual focus mode. As for light...speedlite is your friend just make sure you illuminate the background that you want represented in the water. No direct flash, diffused and FEC to taste. Aperture priority mode set to around 1/125 sec. The flash will act as your shutter, many many times faster than your mechanical shutter and allows you low ISO and smaller aperture. It also helps to darken the room (after the focus is fixed obviously)

I admire you for trying this with natural light. It just would not have occurred to me

Steve

[JK6065]

Jim, thanks for the tutorial. I'll watch and learn.



I think you'll find this very interesting: Martin Waugh in Discovery's Time Warp. I never realized how beautiful an drop of water could be.

About the speedlight: I just ordered a new lens, so for now and don't want to spend that amount of money on photography (cheap ass student I am ), though it wasn't all natural light. I put some white lights on it.