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Catch the Drop
Dec13

How to take a picture of the Water Drop

Article written by: Huub Hendriks
Last Updated:
15th December 2005

It is winter in Europe and generally the weather is not prime for doing extensive photography. What can one do, practice new techniques with Photoshop or clean up your picture collection or build web pages or just sit back and enjoy a good movie?

Huub Hendriks from the Netherlands, asked a different question on DPR a while ago. He asked if it is a good idea to buy the G7 even though the G9 was commercially available. I replied to that question saying that the G7 will always be a fantastic camera and the fact that a new model has been released does not change that. Well Huub did just that and a week ago he send me this interesting picture on the right. I asked him for a little more detail and in the following paragraph is what he then replied to me

Dec14

Dear Siegfried

As you can see in the picture to the left, I'm using my Canon PowerShot G7.

The setup is very simple, take a small wine glass. Put it in your kitchen tub. Fill it with water. Adjust the tap so that it drops a drop of water every 2 or 3 seconds. It's important to leave enough time between drops so that the water has a little time to settle down before the next drop hits the surface.

The surface has to be nice and flat before the next drop hits. Especially for the crown effect. Important: Don't forget to clean your camera once in a while. It will get wet from the little drops.

The "watertower" effect is quite easy to do. It takes a relatively "long" time for the water to rise and fall down again. Start by concentrating on the drop hanging from the tap. When it release itself and when it's completely free of the tap, SHOOT! Success guaranteed!

For an alternative method you can decrease the time between the drops, so that the drops will fall onto each other. When you're lucky, you'll get really high tower! You can further decrease the time to get a really wild effect.

The "crown" effect is a lot harder to do. The crown only exists for a split second. Timing is important! Concentrate on the tap. When the drop tries to free itself from the tap, but is still connected with it: SHOOT! Success.... only when you're lucky... It IS hard to get a good result. Keep trying. When you get one: It's AMAZING! and you want more and more! Shooting drops is addictive! Be warned...

I've also tried different glasses, a bowl plus even a mug. It gives different effects and you're forced to changes the camera settings. You will learn, and understand your camera really well. But the small wineglass is my favorite, because it was my first attempt and gives good results each time. If I manage to get really interesting results with the other stuff, I will send them again. I think the combinations are endless and you be really creative and of course have a lot of fun!

I did some editing on the pictures with the use of Picassa and Acdsee. The "water tower" was a bit light, but after editing, the colors look the same as in the "crown" picture. I also adjusted the sharpness, but only slightly. Finally, just a little cropping.

Well, you asked for a short description. I'm afraid I overdid it...

When you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact me.

Schönes Wochenende und viel Spass!

Huub

Dec16
Dec15
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