Macro Milkdrops

Helium_Junkie · 15 Jan 2007 at 10:15

Morning all! Hope you all had a nice weekend.

Yesterday the wife and I took a different approach to something I'd done before.
A while back, when I first got my Sigma 105mm macro, I set up the tripod in the bathroom, got some mad lighting, and took about 1500 pictures!
Of all those, I got this:

Which I was very proud of :-)

Yesterday I wanted to catch a splash instead of the drip.

We decided against water (we wanted some shadows to give more depth), and instead opted for a saucer of milk. To get a decent DoF and fast enough shutter to avoid blur we had to light the saucer with two desk lamps and a massive mofo torch. And it was still pretty dark

Anyway, here's some of the results. We had some very interestingly shaped splashes, which I'll post when the missus has finished going over them.

1. (My fave)

2.

3.

Thanks for looking, all C&C welcome :-)

Helium_Junkie · 15 Jan 2007 at 11:45

robertgilbert86 said:
water but with an interesting background texture here.

Ooh, thats pretty funky stuff!

Helium_Junkie · 15 Jan 2007 at 14:57

Well you can try to time it, but good luck

I tried hitting the shutter as the drop detached from the dropper, seemed to get a splash half the time. Just setting up a medium speed drip and then snapping like mad seems the best way.
You'll get a fair whack of crap shots, but a few gooduns in there too

Helium_Junkie · 15 Jan 2007 at 15:36

With my fingah!
Well, her finger actually. She held her finger roughly where the drips would hit (a little further back so I could focus on the edge of her finger). Then I used that clever button next to the lens which closes the aperture to see how the depth of field would look (handy that

).

Helium_Junkie · 16 Jan 2007 at 10:58

Funky stuff Alex, thanks for that!

My problem with flash was the sheer number of shots I had to take versus the time for the flash to 'prime'. The flash just cant keep up.
Lining a sink with foil?! I love that idea! I'll have to try some foil in my shots to see if it lights the area well enough.

As for white balance, I admit that is something I don't really understand well enough to use properly, I'll put it at the top of my "to learn about" list