The story behind this picture is lengthy; so I'll make a resume:
I entered the previous version of this shot for "Macro without bugs or flowers". It was scoring above 7.2 after 130 votes, which would have placed me in 2nd place. Unfortunately, my camera was set back by exactly 2 months, disqualifying me after 3 days into voting. I sent irrefutable proof - yes, I had actual proof - that my camera was set back by exactly 2 months to the minute. Unfortunately, DPC decided to stick to their policy and booted me. The old version may be seen here: Trainspotting II
Anyway, I decided to retake the shot for this challenge and glad that I did. With my new flash, I managed to illuminate the needle much more nicely. The draw back was that I had to remove all sources of ambient light around the needle or the yellow incandescent lighting overlapped with the flash ¡V VERY bad mix. This lack of ambient light, in turn, made my droplet completely flat, as it's missing rounded reflections. If I had a bit more time I would have arranged a better setup¡K but this picture was taken within the last deadline hour.
SETUP:
Used my D70 and Sigma 105mm macro. It has a good aperture for the star effect.
Went out of my way to get a 16 gauge needle: the bigger the needle, the bigger the drop. Took a plate of anodized (blackened) aluminum and drilled a hole about 1mm in diameter. The use of metal here is not necessary, but getting a hole that size in cardboard which is perfectly round is difficult. Any anomaly in the roundness shows up in the diffraction pattern (the star effect). The red glow comes from a red transparency that I placed over the metal plate.
Hooked up a 200W light bulb to my cheap Ikea lamp (rated 100W) and cover the lamp in aluminum. Then I made a small opening and aligned it with the metal plate to get an extremely bright pinhole source of light. The room remained relatively dark. Meanwhile, the 200W trapped in my lamp was heating up like mad! I had to wrap the light in paper towel an spray water on the whole thing about ten times between EACH picture. The room still smelt like burnt something.
i love the effect of the red light in the backround of the water. its very beuatiful.....sry bout the suix i accidently voted wrong, i wouldve voted an 8
Great photo. How you got everything to line up with that flare being so perfect is quite suspicious, but maybe because it is beyond my knowledge of photography.
Great shot. Composition spot on. The gray and the red works well together. Also the tiny aperture to produce the star effect is excellent. My blue ribbon pick.
Add photograph to your favorites
Add photographer to your favorites
