Any strobists out there?

[David Martin]

Any one else a fan of Strobist ?

I've just spent an entertaining 45 mins with my 7yo photographing water drops. Splish splash splosh.

220 shots later...

[peterh]

Me!

I've been a fan of the website (and Flickr group) for ages and went to a strobist seminar in London a couple of years ago.  Incredibly inspiring!

Apart from the drops, I love the colours in your drip photos, David

[David Martin]

It was deceptively easy to do as well. I needed a couple of things - a pan which would give me an invisible horizon (ie a flat edge - a pyrex casserole doesn't really work) and a longer focal length macro lens.

Drops don't form crowns unless they fall at least 40-50cm.
The colours are as described - a blue piece of paper behind and a red one overhead so the reflections off the water pick up contrasting colours. (Water is specular so you light what the water reflects).

Focus is a bit off - very hard to get right.  Drips came from a plastic sandwhich bag wired to a hook. A small pinhole then let a constant stream of drips fall in the same place. It was then just a question of numbers - shoot enough frames to get some thing nice. (about 200+, the keep rate is about 1 in 20 at 3fps)

Oh - I gobo's the flash to just light the background. If you look carefully in some of the pics you can see my reflection and the reflection of the clothes pegs holding the paper in place.

..d

[Wobbly John]

I used to do High-speed flash stuff in my 35mm days. Buiult my own triggers - sound and impact triggered. Have done photos of darts bursting balloons, hammers smashing BIG 500W lightbulbs, breaking cups of coffee, etc.

Oh, and a bullet cutting through a playing card. Although this was a set-up still life on a glass sheet, it fooled several judges in camera club competitions.