"How Do You Do That" - Splash Photography

[Cheese&Apple]

Ok, so as requested here's a bit of information about splash photography.

So splash photography is generally about dripping water or other liquids into a bowl - one drop quickly followed by a second drop so that they collide when the first drop rebounds above the bowl. It can be fun for an indoor, rainy day, shoot.

I tried a number of different set-ups with eye droppers, plastic bags, supports, etc. but couldn't get the drops to fall quickly or accurately enough - the second drop has to fall in exactly the same spot and only a millisecond after the first.

After many failed attempts, I finally caved-in and bought the SplashArt kit. Note: I'm not promoting this particular kit, it just seemed like a good choice to me but there are others.

What these systems allow you to do is control the speed and accuracy of the drops. The SplashArt has four dial controls and one button that activates it. It connects to your cable release socket on your camera and to a solenoid valve. Press the button, drops release via the valve from a reservoir and then the camera and speedlights fire. The dials control:

1. size of the first drop,
2. size of the second drop,
3. time between the drops, and
4. time for the camera to fire

It sounds easy but I did find it a bit frustrating at times as there are so many variables. Besides the four controls, other factors are liquid type, liquid viscosity, liquid temperature, amount of liquid in the reservoir, type of bowl you drop into and height of drops above the bowl. Add to that, camera and speedlight set-up and settings and there are a huge number of variables to get right.

I will say though, that once you get it right, it works very well. Set-up and trial for each liquid often took 50-100 shots to get the timing down but once the drops start colliding, they repeat with amazing consistency.

The positive aspect of the number of variables is the huge variety and different looks that you get each time you change something.

I used the Nikon D850, the Nikon 105mm f/2.8 macro lens. Shots were at 1/250 sec, f/22 and generally ISO 200. I did it in my basement so that I had full control over the lighting.

With regard to lighting (sorry I don't have bts shots to include) I used:

• two speedlights fired from the hot shoe by wireless remote triggers - lights manually set at about 1/64 sec.
• a black foam core cardboard backdrop (from the dollar store) for the opaque liquid (light 5% coffee cream) with the speedlights pointing at the drops from each side, and
• a white foam core cardboard backdrop for the clear liquid (water thickened with a bit of guar gum) with the speedlights pointed, from both sides, at the white backdrop for a bounce light on the drops.

I used food colouring for both the water and coffee cream and speedlight gels to get different looks. I found that different backdrop colours, other than back and white, didn't do much for me.

The shot above was done with thickened water, a white backdrop and amber speedlight gels.

The shot below was done with thickened water coloured blue, a white backdrop and speedlights without gels.

The shot below is a three shot Photoshop composite:

1. light coffee cream drop in the bowl with drop collision
2. light coffee cream drop in mid air - shape changed from round to teardrop using "puppet warp" in Ps, and
3. the strawberry - it was tough to get the white of the berry and shape of the hanging drop right. I finally ended-up dunking the berry into some hand cream diluted with a bit of milk.

The three shots were adjusted using "levels" to get the whites to all match, "free transform" to balance the size of each layer and then composite layered - in Ps.

A bit of a long winded post but, there you go.

Cheers,
Peter

 

[kenoh]

Awesome....

 

[Clix Pix]

Fascinating! Thanks for the description! Sounds like a lot of time spent on getting things right, but oh, the resulting images are so worth it!

 

[someoldguy]

Ok, so as requested here's a bit of information about splash photography.

So splash photography is generally about dripping water or other liquids into a bowl - one drop quickly followed by a second drop so that they collide when the first drop rebounds above the bowl. It can be fun for an indoor, rainy day, shoot.

I tried a number of different set-ups with eye droppers, plastic bags, supports, etc. but couldn't get the drops to fall quickly or accurately enough - the second drop has to fall in exactly the same spot and only a millisecond after the first.

After many failed attempts, I finally caved-in and bought the SplashArt kit. Note: I'm not promoting this particular kit, it just seemed like a good choice to me but there are others.

What these systems allow you to do is control the speed and accuracy of the drops. The SplashArt has four dial controls and one button that activates it. It connects to your cable release socket on your camera and to a solenoid valve. Press the button, drops release via the valve from a reservoir and then the camera and speedlights fire. The dials control:

1. size of the first drop,
2. size of the second drop,
3. time between the drops, and
4. time for the camera to fire

It sounds easy but I did find it a bit frustrating at times as there are so many variables. Besides the four controls, other factors are liquid type, liquid viscosity, liquid temperature, amount of liquid in the reservoir, type of bowl you drop into and height of drops above the bowl. Add to that, camera and speedlight set-up and settings and there are a huge number of variables to get right.

I will say though, that once you get it right, it works very well. Set-up and trial for each liquid often took 50-100 shots to get the timing down but once the drops start colliding, they repeat with amazing consistency.

The positive aspect of the number of variables is the huge variety and different looks that you get each time you change something.

I used the Nikon D850, the Nikon 105mm f/2.8 macro lens. Shots were at 1/250 sec, f/22 and generally ISO 200. I did it in my basement so that I had full control over the lighting.

With regard to lighting (sorry I don't have bts shots to include) I used:

• two speedlights fired from the hot shoe by wireless remote triggers - lights manually set at about 1/64 sec.
• a black foam core cardboard backdrop (from the dollar store) for the opaque liquid (light 5% coffee cream) with the speedlights pointing at the drops from each side, and
• a white foam core cardboard backdrop for the clear liquid (water thickened with a bit of guar gum) with the speedlights pointed, from both sides, at the white backdrop for a bounce light on the drops.

I used food colouring for both the water and coffee cream and speedlight gels to get different looks. I found that different backdrop colours, other than back and white, didn't do much for me.

The shot above was done with thickened water, a white backdrop and amber speedlight gels.

The shot below was done with thickened water coloured blue, a white backdrop and speedlights without gels.

The shot below is a three shot Photoshop composite:

1. light coffee cream drop in the bowl with drop collision
2. light coffee cream drop in mid air - shape changed from round to teardrop using "puppet warp" in Ps, and
3. the strawberry - it was tough to get the white of the berry and shape of the hanging drop right. I finally ended-up dunking the berry into some hand cream diluted with a bit of milk.

The three shots were adjusted using "levels" to get the whites to all match, "free transform" to balance the size of each layer and then composite layered - in Ps.

A bit of a long winded post but, there you go.

Cheers,
Peter

That's Great!! Thanks for posting this ....

 

[Apple fanboy]

Ok, so as requested here's a bit of information about splash photography.

So splash photography is generally about dripping water or other liquids into a bowl - one drop quickly followed by a second drop so that they collide when the first drop rebounds above the bowl. It can be fun for an indoor, rainy day, shoot.

I tried a number of different set-ups with eye droppers, plastic bags, supports, etc. but couldn't get the drops to fall quickly or accurately enough - the second drop has to fall in exactly the same spot and only a millisecond after the first.

After many failed attempts, I finally caved-in and bought the SplashArt kit. Note: I'm not promoting this particular kit, it just seemed like a good choice to me but there are others.

What these systems allow you to do is control the speed and accuracy of the drops. The SplashArt has four dial controls and one button that activates it. It connects to your cable release socket on your camera and to a solenoid valve. Press the button, drops release via the valve from a reservoir and then the camera and speedlights fire. The dials control:

1. size of the first drop,
2. size of the second drop,
3. time between the drops, and
4. time for the camera to fire

It sounds easy but I did find it a bit frustrating at times as there are so many variables. Besides the four controls, other factors are liquid type, liquid viscosity, liquid temperature, amount of liquid in the reservoir, type of bowl you drop into and height of drops above the bowl. Add to that, camera and speedlight set-up and settings and there are a huge number of variables to get right.

I will say though, that once you get it right, it works very well. Set-up and trial for each liquid often took 50-100 shots to get the timing down but once the drops start colliding, they repeat with amazing consistency.

The positive aspect of the number of variables is the huge variety and different looks that you get each time you change something.

I used the Nikon D850, the Nikon 105mm f/2.8 macro lens. Shots were at 1/250 sec, f/22 and generally ISO 200. I did it in my basement so that I had full control over the lighting.

With regard to lighting (sorry I don't have bts shots to include) I used:

• two speedlights fired from the hot shoe by wireless remote triggers - lights manually set at about 1/64 sec.
• a black foam core cardboard backdrop (from the dollar store) for the opaque liquid (light 5% coffee cream) with the speedlights pointing at the drops from each side, and
• a white foam core cardboard backdrop for the clear liquid (water thickened with a bit of guar gum) with the speedlights pointed, from both sides, at the white backdrop for a bounce light on the drops.

I used food colouring for both the water and coffee cream and speedlight gels to get different looks. I found that different backdrop colours, other than back and white, didn't do much for me.

The shot above was done with thickened water, a white backdrop and amber speedlight gels.

The shot below was done with thickened water coloured blue, a white backdrop and speedlights without gels.

The shot below is a three shot Photoshop composite:

1. light coffee cream drop in the bowl with drop collision
2. light coffee cream drop in mid air - shape changed from round to teardrop using "puppet warp" in Ps, and
3. the strawberry - it was tough to get the white of the berry and shape of the hanging drop right. I finally ended-up dunking the berry into some hand cream diluted with a bit of milk.

The three shots were adjusted using "levels" to get the whites to all match, "free transform" to balance the size of each layer and then composite layered - in Ps.

A bit of a long winded post but, there you go.

Cheers,
Peter

Now I know why your images were so much better than mine! Spray and pray when it comes to these type of shots. But they didn't look very good!

 

[Donka]

Stunning shots!

 

[keyrex]

Thanks for the tutorial, excellent shots. Looks like fun to play with.

 

[kallisti]

Very, very cool. Thanks for sharing.

Can you share a pic of the entire setup including flash placement?

 

[Alexander.Of.Oz]

Brilliantly conveyed, Peter! Thank you so much, this is something I have wanted to investigate for the longest time, but found the tutorials too convoluted & involved. You were succinct, thorough and openly hared what worked and how with us, which others haven't been so gracious with, when I've been searching for tutorials about this technique. Or, they have pointed you to their multi-hundred dollar courses!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

 

[Laird Knox]

Nice write up. The only thing I would change is not connect the camera to the drop rig. Open the shutter for two or three seconds and let the drop rig trigger the strobes. Not a big difference but it removes any sync variables in the equation. I also used this to double fire the strobes for some shots. This let me capture the events both above and below the waterline.

I'm really happy with the Pluto Trigger system. Instead of analog controls you can set the ms delay on your smartphone. I also used the StopShot and StopShot Studio in school. All very capable systems. I hadn't heard of SplashArt. There are so many on the market these days.

 

[Cheese&Apple]

Thanks for the comments and you're welcome.

Very, very cool. Thanks for sharing.

Can you share a pic of the entire setup including flash placement?

Thanks kallisti. I'll revisit this thread and post some set-up shots next time I use it. At the moment, everything is packed away as I don't have much space in the basement.

Nice write up. The only thing I would change is not connect the camera to the drop rig. Open the shutter for two or three seconds and let the drop rig trigger the strobes. Not a big difference but it removes any sync variables in the equation. I also used this to double fire the strobes for some shots. This let me capture the events both above and below the waterline.

I'm really happy with the Pluto Trigger system. Instead of analog controls you can set the ms delay on your smartphone. I also used the StopShot and StopShot Studio in school. All very capable systems. I hadn't heard of SplashArt. There are so many on the market these days.

Very true, that works as well Laird Knox. There are a number of different ways to do it. The key to the whole thing is speed and accuracy of the drops from a good quality and well timed solenoid valve and off camera speedlights.