What to do on my day off? Water drop shots!

There's not much going on photographically outdoors right now.   It's rainy, overcast, and there is very little color.   Not enough to convince me to go out shooting in the rain.   Instead, I decided to make the best of an indoor day and try my hand at taking pictures of falling water drops.

I used common household items to build my "set".  A step ladder, clean oil pan, zip lock bag, and some colorful things for a back ground. 

I filled the bag with water and hung it from the top of the ladder over the oil pan full of water.  I attached my off camera flash to the side of the ladder and positioned a reflector on the opposite side.   Then it was a matter of poking a small hole in the bag and getting to work. 

I tried a variety of back drops.  The more colorful and bright the better the results.   You see in the photo on the right that  I was using one of June's old clown costumes and a red stadium chair.

The hardest thing is to focus in the right spot.  I held a pencil so the point was right where the  drops hit the surface of the water and manually focused on the pencil.

I found the following gave me the best results:

• Camera in manual mode, lens in manual focus
• 1/250 of a second (max sync speed)
• f/7.1 - f/22 depending on how much I wanted to blur the background.
• ISO appropriate to get a good exposure using these settings, usually 200 - 400.
• flash output set to 1/10.  This results in a faster flash.

Then I just started firing away as fast as the flash would recycle.  There's no timing these shots so it's all chance.  I took 192 shots and quickly deleted 147.  Out of the 45 remaining I picked 26 to work on. I then narrowed them down to 14 that were worth sharing.  All 14 are available on my website.

Here's a few of those 14.

Notice the red from the stadium chair in these shots.

Look closely and you will see the clown suit in the water drops.  You can click on any photo to get a larger view.

Most of my shots were looking across the water and slightly down.   I also shot looking down at the surface of the water.   These came out almost black and white so I went ahead a converted them to true black and white.

I hope you like these.  They were fun to do.   Best of all, I didn't have any water disasters and only had to wipe up a little water off the kitchen floor.

Compromising With Pearls

Recently when biking around Cades Cove at sunrise I came across a field of tall grass, spiderwebs, and dew.   This combination can create some beautiful abstract artsy images with dew drops on the spiderwebs.   I wanted to get up close and shoot the "String of Pearls" but I didn't have my macro lens with me.   It would have been the perfect solution to this situation. 

I did have a couple other lenses with me, including a 80-400mm long telephoto, a 24-105mm zoom and a 17-50mm wide-angle zoom.   I wanted to have the dew drops as sharp as possible but blur the background to keep it from being distracting.   I choose the 17-50, set it at 50mm, f/2.8.   The wide angle let me focus reasonably close and the wide open aperture blurred the background.   Typically, short focal length lenses will have a larger depth of field and in this case, even at f/2.8 the background was too distracting. 

I decided to crop down as much as possible to see if I could eliminate the background distractions.   This is an extreme crop of the same picture.

Be sure to click the photo to zoom in and see the details.

You can see that by compromising the end result is just not sharp.  If I had my macro with me I would have gotten a much sharper image of the dew drops.  Oh well.

Right now I am studying a book by Warren Wiersbe on the Book of Exodus.  In it he says "most people in our world are being crucified between two thieves: the regrets of yesterday and the worries about tomorrow.  That's why they can't enjoy today."   What a waste.   I made a choice when I packed my camera bag and got on my bike that morning.   I could regret not having what I needed, or I can be happy I got to enjoy God's String of Pearls.   Next time I go out to take photos I can worry about having to leave some piece of camera gear behind or worry about not being at the right spot at just the right time or I can enjoy the moment and be glad I'm there.

Later that morning I got to spend about an hour using my long telephoto lens to shoot deer and black bear in the Cove.   You can bet I wasn't worrying about not having my macro lens then!  God's creation is all around us.  We'll miss seeing much of it because we are so busy running around.  If we slow down and look God will provide the Wow moments for us.

Wasn't That A Mighty Storm?



100mm Macro, f/3.2, 1/80 sec



That's the title to a  song by Nancy Griffith that I enjoy.   It's an old classic sung by many great artists over the years.  The song started as a spiritual and was first recorded in a prison near Sandy Point, Texas, sung by "Sin-Killer" Griffin who claimed authorship.  It's reported to describe the very famous 1900 Galveston hurricane, which remains the deadliest natural disaster in United States history, responsible for an estimated 6,000 to 12,000 fatalities.

This past Saturday we had a series of thunderstorms roll through our area with confirmed tornadoes, golf ball sized hail, and lots of damage.   We didn't have any damage at our house, but it did leave everything very wet, including the kitchen window.   This is a shot taken in the kitchen looking out with Red-Tip Photinia at the bottom and Dogwoods at the top.   Just goes to show you can find something interesting to shoot no matter where you are and the conditions.  Just look around!

When Worlds Collide - Weird and Amazing Macro Photography!

If you recognize this blog post title as the title of a 1930's science fiction novel or 1951 film then you are a true Sci-Fi Geek.

I heard someone talk about doing this macro photography trick at the Wilderness Wildlife Week in Pigeon Forge last month.  It is a cool effect and all you need is a clear pan, water, oil and a close up or macro capable camera.  

I used one of June's pyrex dishes, a 1/4 inch of water and some cooking oil.   I put the dish between two chairs and positioned the camera so it was pointing straight down at the surface of the water.   I added some of the oil and let it collect into little spheres on the surface of the water.  

I learned you don't want to stir the oil/water too much because it will continue to move for a long time and it creates air bubbles on the surface, which are not as interesting as the oil itself.  

Click on any image for a larger view.

 

To add interest I needed something colorful to place under the dish to add some color.   What better than the gift bags my birthday presents were in!   By moving the bag around I got different color combinations.

I then used a small LED flashlight to shine on the bag, highlighting different colors.  I kept experimenting by moving the bag and light around.  You can see my simple setup below.

This was a lot of fun to do.  If you want to try it out, here are some suggestions.



1. Use a medium aperture like f/8.  Smaller and your depth of field is too small.  Larger and you start to see details below the dish.
2. Don't stir the water too much.
3. Wait for the water and oil to stop moving.
4. Make sure the camera is perpendicular to the surface of the water.
5. Decide what you want to be sharp and focus on that.
6. Try lots of different shots, lighting, colors, what ever you can think of.

Give it a try.  Amaze your friends and family!   It's fun and easy.  

Ordinary Made Extraordinary - Gear Photography

There is always something to shoot.   You don't have to have a perfect day or a perfect subject.  Sometimes ordinary items can become extraordinary subjects.  This is especially true in macro or close up photography.   Here's an example.

My son Tim ordered a new set of gears for his mountain bike.  When he opened the package and I saw the repeating pattern of silvery gears I said "I've got to shoot that!".   Fortunately for me, he was lacking a tool to replace the gears so I had an extra day to try out the gear photography.

The gears themselves were interesting under normal light, but I thought adding some color would add some interest and make them eye catching.   I used the on camera flash and a second off-camera slave flash to light the gears.  I then used colored tissue paper over the flashes to add the reds, blues, and yellows.  I also used a yellow envelope behind the gears to give a stronger yellow reflection.

I was shooting in manual mode on the camera and adjusted the on-camera flash output depending on the tissue paper and where the other flash was positioned.   I moved the off-camera flash around to produce different lighting effects.

I'm normally outside shooting landscapes or nature so it's a little out of the ordinary for me to shoot still life or abstract photos.  It was fun to try something new.  And I didn't need a fancy studio or a particularly special subject for this.  Just goes to show, you can find something to shoot anywhere.

These were all shot at ISO 640 using a Canon 100mm macro.  The aperture was between f/10 and f/16 and of course I was using a tripod.