Thank you all ! I am very proud of this ribbon. Its colour even fits my photo :-)
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2 droplets of milk colliding in a cup of coffee.
This was shot in a dark room, using a 0.6 second exposure time, along with a flash in stroboscopic mode. This is why you can see the evolution of the collision. In fact, the droplets on the upper part of the photo are not different ones, but the very same one falling down, and captured by the flash burst at various positions.
Gear and settings:
- Canon 5D mark II, Shutter priority mode, 0.6 sec, ISO 100
- Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM, f/13, 200mm, manual focus, IS off
- Canon Speedlite 580EX II, Stroboscopic mode, 4 bursts @100Hz, 1/32
- Synchro made using a StopShot module from Cognisys
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Thank you for your response Christophe - I really appreciate it. I have been trying something like this..and 4 evenings and over 1500 shots haven't netted me anything worthwhile (or reasonably close to something that I'd be happy with)...
I'm going to order an IR trigger device like that StopShot module, and hopefully that'd reduce the trial-and-error ratio.
Sorry for the late reply Manav, didn't see your question until now.
1. The cup is quite small, it's an espresso cup. I tried also with a bigger cup (like for tea) but the droplets and splashes were just too small when compared to it.
2. Again, the trick is to use a small cup, so that everything looks big :-) I was also using a 25mm macro tube along with the 200mm lens, so that I could focus from much nearer and fill the frame. About the droplets' shape, honestly I'm not sure... they just came out that way. Probably due to the shape of the small "funnel" from where the droplets were falling.
I have a last couple of questions if you don't mind :-) (I've been trying to setup this shot in my basement and after spending a couple of hours, I need to clarify a few things):
1. How big is that cup?
2. How're you getting the drops to be perfectly spherical / symmetrical and more importantly, so big! (I've been trying with water and the drops don't seem to have a smooth spherical shape)?
you upped the ante on this one. drop shots have been amazing around here but now this. not just an amazing capture of the drop itself but an overall beautiful image. nice work. congratulations.
@Debbi: The cup is brown, standing on a shiny red paper. As for the lights, you got it all right: there is one flash from the right side, and several bounce white papers all around the left side. There is also a diffusing sheet just under the flash, so that the cup does not get harsh light while the droplets do. This helped me having the milk as white as possible without overexposing the cup. Sorry I didn't take any setup shot. As for the equipment's price, it was around $600, without counting the photo equipment itself. I hope my wife will not read this post :o)
Congratulations, Christopher. That's a cool mug, by the way -- it looks like leather.
Thanks for sharing your settings and process, I'm always impressed when a photographer generously does that. It makes up for not marking your comments as helpful. :-D
Was the cup red or black? Red paper behind cup? I'm trying to figure the light placement. I see one flash on the right side, but how did the light get on the other side of the mug? Bounce card? Any setup shots? This shot much have shot over $1,000 dollars worth of equip?
Extremely well done and masterfully executed!
Debbi
Beautifull and i whish I could one day capture someting like this. These type of shots are really a challenge for me. You have given me something to aspire to. Great work.
@manavg:
The module was controlling:
- the solenoid valve positioned above the cup (and connected to a tank containing milk)
- an infrared motion detector, positioned below the valve, on the droplets' way
- the DSLR
- the flash
Most of the technical work consisted in programming the module, so that it would allow for 2 consecutive droplets to fall within about 80ms, trigger the DSRL just after that, detect the droplets falling next to the motion detector, and fire the flash bursts accordingly.
At first I tried all of this manually, but it was a real nightmare, especially without the solenoid valve to launch 2 droplets at will... you should have seen my tries using a perforated yogurt pot in a dark room :-)
Overall, it took me about 2.000 tries, distributed over 4 week-ends, but I'm a slow guy!
Woah! Thank you! I'm going to try out something like this over the week (and weeks to come)..hopefully, I'll get a suitable challenge to display a selection... i don't have a StopShot module..and probably may not be able to afford it right now - so I'm gonna have way more than 2000 shots! :-)
@manavg:
The module was controlling:
- the solenoid valve positioned above the cup (and connected to a tank containing milk)
- an infrared motion detector, positioned below the valve, on the droplets' way
- the DSLR
- the flash
Most of the technical work consisted in programming the module, so that it would allow for 2 consecutive droplets to fall within about 80ms, trigger the DSRL just after that, detect the droplets falling next to the motion detector, and fire the flash bursts accordingly.
At first I tried all of this manually, but it was a real nightmare, especially without the solenoid valve to launch 2 droplets at will... you should have seen my tries using a perforated yogurt pot in a dark room :-)
Overall, it took me about 2.000 tries, distributed over 4 week-ends, but I'm a slow guy!
I don't want to like this ... it's a drop shot. The drops are well done (and more complicated than anything I could ever achieve, I suspect) but what really attracted me is the light on the mug and the background. I really like that and the red/brown tones.
I get rather tired of the drop pictures, but man, you have a quintuple drop series going on here. This is really good. Congrats on a job well done. The title is great too. I'm one of those who will give an extra point when the title is clever and it adds to the overall appeal of the image. The rich warm red is oh so nice.
Boom boom
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