The other day I was trying to take another picture using the water droplet on glass technique. It worked out VERY nice during the summer when I was home in Sudbury, Ont... However I went back to London Ont. for the school year and tried to replicate some of the effects i had previously gotten....
I got a piece of glass from a cheap picture frame and tried spraying it with water... and i was completely frutstrated because all I got were these puddles of water and they moved around too much! I tried several times with different "spray" settings on my water bottle... Nothing
Then I remembered.. i used plexi glass during the summer... and the water beaded up nicely on it... so if you're having trouble with the water drop technique.. try using plexi glass or get yourself some kind of spray that will help the water bead up on your glass :)
i tryed rain-X...And man oh man did it ever beed up. Infact, it beeded up so high and perfectly round that it looked fake as hell. every beed was exactly the same and perfectly round. made my shot look too fake. and i couldn't use plexiglass cause i needed a mirror. and my drops did the same thing, just layed out real thin and sucky. I went from one extreme to the other
Same happened to me... I'm going looking for some Rain-X tomorrow, although I might have a problem finding it. It doesn't rain much here and I doubt there is a big market for it.
If you want an out of this worlds look. Try car wax. Remember water will bond with glass if it is not cleaned right. Clean glass with Glass cleaner and then put a fresh coat of wax on it. That will give it a great shine and it will fill in the glass so the water can not bond with the glass. Now when the water can not bond it has to take the path of least resistance as far as Surface Tension goes. The only choice it has as far as the shape that requires least resistance is a spere. Chemistry 101
If you want the opposite effect (water sheeting action) I'd first try automatic dishwasher detergent.
If you want beading action on darker surfaces try the appropriate color of old-fashioned paste shoe polish. You can apply thickly with textured or matte surface, or buff to glossy finish.
