How to take a beautiful photo of water droplets in photography class

White cloth, flashlight, water bottle, tripod, bowl.

Let's take a look at the overall work site first. It's a mess (taken in the company dormitory)

1, how to control water droplets?

Punch a hole or two in the water bottle with a needle, and the water drops will slowly drip down. When the bottle cap is tightened, no water drops will fall. Twist the drop point, and the speed of water drops can be controlled.

2. What container is used to hold water?

Pots, plates, bowls, etc. It can hold water, making it bigger and more convenient to take pictures. It's best to fill them up, so that the edge of the plate won't block too much sight.

3. How to match the light?

Backlight is the main thing, shoot the water through, and make up a little light on the front, not too strong, as long as you can shoot the water clearly.

Put a piece of A4 paper at the back of the plate and a flash at the back to keep the flash away from the machine. The light hitting the paper can be much softer, and a gradual effect can be obtained, which is not as dazzling as direct flashing.

The other can be held by hand and placed on the edge of the lens as a reflector, and the light in the back can be reflected to the water in front.

4. How to place the seats?

It is best for the camera lens to be close to the water surface, so that the water droplets can be penetrated by the light behind and get good reflection.

5. What is the appropriate water drop speed? What is the appropriate shutter speed?

The speed of water drops should be controlled in 2-3 seconds, so that the water surface can see the reflection calmly. If the water drops are fast, the ripples on the water surface will not be calm.

The reflection effect on the water surface is similar.

Shutter speed depends on how many sheets your flash can support. Theoretically, the faster the speed, the more water droplets can be frozen.

But the output power will be higher, the power consumption will be more, and the callback will be slower. I turned on the front fill light of the internal flash (internal flash output 1/32, external flash output116).

The maximum speed of internal flash is 1/320s, so my maximum speed is 1/320s.

6. How do water droplets focus?

I put a chopstick in the position of the water drop, and the camera is set to focus manually. First, when I aim at chopsticks, the water drops will be clear. When shooting, don't move the tripod, basically every drop of water is in focus.

7. How is the gradient spot in the background made?

The flash wasn't high enough, so I put one below. When the flash is close to A4 paper, the light spot will gradually change from both sides of the middle image. When the flash is far away, the whole background will be white.

8. How did the brightness of the background come from?

This is the effect of flashing the machine behind the flash. Macro shooting used butter paper (there was no A4 paper at that time, and the principle was the same).

9. Why are water droplets blue? Look at the comparison of this picture and you will understand.

This is a water drop taken by automatic white balance. It's a little gray and ugly, so ... (This is the key)

10, why is the water blue?

If the white balance of the camera is set to the lowest color temperature of 2500, the picture will be blue. If it is not blue enough, a blue curve will be raised in the curve later, and the picture will be blue and transparent.

1 1, what lens do you use?

Try to shoot the camera with a telephoto lens, so that you are not afraid of splashing water. I shot it with 70-2 10F4, and the nearest focal length at the 70th end is still a little far.

So I added a close-up, so that my lens can be focused to 0.4 meters recently, so my aperture received F20, so that the depth of field of the whole water drop can come out.

It also ensures that the soft paper on the water surface and background can be blurred, so it is best to shoot with an aperture of about F5.6-F8 if you shoot with an ordinary lens.

12, how to catch the falling water drops?

Some experts use high-end equipment such as trigger shutter, such as the principle of voice-activated shutter. I'm just a wage earner, and I don't have such strong R&D strength.

So what I did was to watch the water drop leave the bottle and press the shutter, basically catching the moment when it entered the water. If your camera continuous shooting speed is enough, the flashback speed is enough.

It's not bad to drive the expressway in continuous shooting.