Water Drop II Setup

Water Drop II Setup

Image by nickwheeleroz
Strobist Information:

After my first experiments with a photogate trigger, I was pretty happy with the setup I had figured out, however I still had a nagging doubt in my mind that the setup was not quite as optimised as it could be. My original interest in using a trigger was sparked by Bald Monk's fantastic Strawberries and Cream shot. When I checked the EXIF data on this picture I had seen that Monk had a shutter speed of 1/180th of a second. I couldn't figure out how he had timed the shutter release so precisely to the delay on the flashes. I racked my brains for a couple of days pondering how you could use two triggers or two delay units to match the camera shutter release to the flash but to no avail.

I was about to admit defeat and actually ask him how he had done it when I had one of those forehead slapping 'dur' moments. I didn't need to separate the trigger from the flashes and the camera, all I needed to do was fire the camera and let it fire the flashes. Kind of obvious really, but I had been too busy over thinking the problem to see the simple solution.

So my new configuration is photogate trigger fires the delay circuit, delay circuit fires e-bay transmitter, e-bay receiver picks up trigger from transmitter and trips remote shutter release. Camera fires with attached pocket wizard to fire flashes. With the flashes on low enough power, they are still giving an effective shutter speed far higher than the actual shutter speed (1/125th) and I just need to adjust the delay circuit to take firing the camera into account.

With this setup, everything is done from the photogate trigger, you can still have multiple flashes and you can have all the lights on while you are working. For the hight of lazinesses, I also pulled an old 14" portable TV from the back of a cupboard and attached the video out signal from the camera. This way, I didn't even need to run back to the camera after each shot, I could just look at the TV screen to see if I had got anything worth keeping! :)

Of course, what I didn't know while I was trying to figure this out was that Monk hadn't actually used a trigger at all on the Strawberries and Cream shot, he had just eyeballed it and got a perfect result! :)

For these shots, I used a red cocktail glass filled with water. This was sat on an upturned glass bowl in a large plastic mixing bowl. The large bowl was acting as a drip catcher to stop the water going everywhere. At 45 degrees to either side of the front of the glass I placed an Ikea chopping board to act as a diffuser and placed a cardboard flag at 90 degrees to each of these to stop the flashes flaring back into the camera. Behind each chopping board I had an SB-28 on 1/8th power. Behind the large bowl I had a Sunpak 383 on 1/16th power and behind the bowl just above the top of the glass I had a third sb-28 on 1/32 power to light the water drops.

Above the glass, held in a reflector arm holder, I had the photogate. I used a water bottle with a hole drilled in the cap to create the drips and just held it above the photogate letting it drip away until the cameras buffer had filled up.

As you can see from the final pictures, the setup worked a treat in terms of the timing. What I am lacking now is any finesse in my ability to create water drops. I am planning on a trip to the local DIY store soon to check out plumbing parts to make some sort of dripping tap that will allow me more control over the size and frequency of my drops. If anyone has any good tips on doing this, I would be extremely interested in hearing them! :)

Pictures here:
What's Your Poison
The Return of Aqua Man
You Big Wet Drip

Learn how to light: www.strobist.com

Abstract Grunge Texture

Image by ImageAbstraction
Abstract background of grungy metal.

This texture is provided free of charge under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License with the condition that a credit (printed use) or a hyperlink (online use) is made to www.imageabstraction.com. Thanks!

Have you created artwork using this image? Post it in the Image Abstraction Showcase flickr group. We'd love to see your work.

Stinger (Left)

Image by xalamay
Wallpaper / background
* See the entire collection HERE


FOR INVERTED IMAGE CLICK HERE

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Little Bee (Left)

Image by xalamay
Wallpaper / background
* See the entire collection HERE

FOR INVERTED IMAGE CLICK HERE

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.