January Challenge - Macro - Discussion Thread

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Thanks AB, you can guess what I've been doing while avoiding her folks over xmas! :lol:

@Robcal; yea, go for it! always fun making a mess and then blaming the dog.. :oops:
 
That's going to be hard to beat. What's the contraption involving the enlarger you referred to?
 
well I tried taping pop bottles to a tripod, then made a wooden frame... neither would get the droplets into the same place so I dug out an old enlarger and used that to hold a couple of smaller bottles rather than 2 litre pepsi... The old Vivitar enlarger is an ideal shape, with a solid frame, adjustable in height, directly over a nice flat surface... works well.

edit; "contraption" is spot on! Heath Robinson would have rejected the design for being silly! :)

yep, 10 (ten) second exposure...
 
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Wonderful idea. You should try it with a range of liquids of different viscosities, eg milk, cooking oil, honey etc. :cool:
 
@Smoker;
yea, the only trouble with that is that the different viscosity screws around with the timings which makes it a real pain to get any consistency. I found the best results came liquids of very similar viscosity, mainly milk with a couple of drops of printer ink or food colouring.

I didn't try milk / cooking oil as I thought I might end up having to rebuild the pipework if I couldn't clean it out! I did try white spirit / petrol / diesel and the shot entered has diesel in the dish with black ink. Hence the uneven surface texture and colours, milk for the first droplet, and milk with yellow ink for the second and third drops.

Milk / water with food colouring or ink was what I found easiest to work with.

One thing that I found that was a big help is making a manifold for the water drops. I found some old white nylon tube, I think it's air tubing, used for pneumatics? not sure. but it cuts with a stanley and you can weld it with a soldering iron! Once I'd made that, all the drops hit exactly the same place which was much easier than trying to mount two bottles to drop it in the same place!
 
Searoad said:
@Smoker;
yea, the only trouble with that is that the different viscosity screws around with the timings which makes it a real pain to get any consistency. I found the best results came liquids of very similar viscosity, mainly milk with a couple of drops of printer ink or food colouring.

I didn't try milk / cooking oil as I thought I might end up having to rebuild the pipework if I couldn't clean it out! I did try white spirit / petrol / diesel and the shot entered has diesel in the dish with black ink. Hence the uneven surface texture and colours, milk for the first droplet, and milk with yellow ink for the second and third drops.

Milk / water with food colouring or ink was what I found easiest to work with.

One thing that I found that was a big help is making a manifold for the water drops. I found some old white nylon tube, I think it's air tubing, used for pneumatics? not sure. but it cuts with a stanley and you can weld it with a soldering iron! Once I'd made that, all the drops hit exactly the same place which was much easier than trying to mount two bottles to drop it in the same place!
Click to expand...

Would be fascinated to see a pic of that. Maybe post next month if you don't want anyone nicking the idea.
 
Good point, but most of the info is out there somewhere already! pm me an email address if you want to see a sneak preview. :)

I would suggest to anyone thinking of trying it to give it a go! It's frustratingly simple but when you get the shot? VERY BIG GRIN

:)
 
What is the actual exposure length?

Please don't say 10 seconds ;)

It's very good btw
 
Thank you kind sir! :) a lot of fun trying to get it too!
the actual shutter speed dialed in on the camera was 10 seconds! No really... it was...


(but it might help if I add to that, a darkened room and a flash on low power!) :)

@peach
Sorry, I thought I'd written that before in answer to your question, but looking back, it only posted the first line of my answer last time.
 
Searoad said:
Thank you kind sir! :) a lot of fun trying to get it too!
the actual shutter speed dialed in on the camera was 10 seconds! No really... it was...


(but it might help if I add to that, a darkened room and a flash on low power!) :)

@peach
Sorry, I thought I'd written that before in answer to your question, but looking back, it only posted the first line of my answer last time.
Click to expand...

I am with you. Why the need to be dark though? I guess it is the need to synch the flash with the droplet, easier than synching the exposure with the droplet?

Are you pressing the flash manually when you release the droplet?

That must have taken a few goes :) Well done
 
Was trying this myself last week hoping to get a good clear shot for this challenge.
Nothing complicated about the set up though.


Bowl of milk on the kitchen bench,
Eye dropper with blue ink
Very poor light from the window.
Shutter speed 1/1600 on continuous shooting
iso 1600
F2.8

Hence the not so brilliant quality and lots of noise.

Good fun trying though.

picture.php
 
Icarebecauseyoudo said:
I am with you. Why the need to be dark though? I guess it is the need to synch the flash with the droplet, easier than synching the exposure with the droplet?

Are you pressing the flash manually when you release the droplet?

That must have taken a few goes :) Well done
Click to expand...

I messed around with this a couple of years ago for one of the competitions on here, it's much easier to sync the flash with the drop hitting the water than it is to sync the shutter. Lowest power and manual flash.
 
AB22 Easy Tiger said:
I messed around with this a couple of years ago for one of the competitions on here, it's much easier to sync the flash with the drop hitting the water than it is to sync the shutter. Lowest power and manual flash.
Click to expand...

For a small band we are blessed with a remarkable array of talents!

Most of them utterly useless :lol: ;)
 
Icarebecauseyoudo said:
I am with you. Why the need to be dark though? I guess it is the need to synch the flash with the droplet, easier than synching the exposure with the droplet?

Are you pressing the flash manually when you release the droplet?

That must have taken a few goes :) Well done
Click to expand...

dark room? unless you mute the light, you'll get a 10 second exposure of everything but the droplets and it will be over exposed... the droplet will be correct... not agood look! :)

It does depend on the F stop you use, I found a balance of DOF and light after a few tries, but starting with the flash is easier, lowest power setting on Manual... then crank up the F stop to give the deepest DOF until the image starts getting darker, then go back one click. Increasing the ISO will also increase the noise, so I tend to leave that as low as possible - 200 or so.

You can sync the droplet with the shutter, (nothing against that), but the big advantage of synching to the flash rather than the shutter is the (effectively) faster shutter speed that results - you might get into the region of 1/20,000th of a second! Not many cameras can go play in those areas, not mine certainly. You get much sharper droplets or at least less blurry ones.

Yes, manually pressing the flash. (One flash is better than multiple flash unless you hard wire them together).

LOL, yep it does take a few goes! but that wont matter when you get the one shot that works :)

It's just a timing thing... set up a camera on a tripod next to the sink, have the tap so it drips every few seconds. prefocus the camera and set to manual focus, Auto is fine too. use the camera to sync rather than the flash - unless you have an endless supply of duracells! Your shots will tell you if you are too early or too late.. you'll be surprised how quick you get a feel for the "right" timing. :)
 
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