Second crack at droplets - doing it efficiently.

As you all remember, I gave shooting droplets a try way back. It was freezing cold and miserable outside, so I thought why not give it another try. All the basic lighting setup was as I have posted here when I did the first shoot. That time the success rate was very low... about 1 out of 20 could be saved, let alone being descent. The main problem was not in timing the shot...but in making sure the droplets would land on the same (closely grouped) places. This was more critical as the field of view and DOF were very low relative to other shoots.

So, the solution to that was a simple one. I used my reflector holder arm to hold a baby dropper in place. Filled it up using a cup to avoid removing it and replacing. This way, the placement problem was sorted out easily. Yet, timing would still be an issue... but had to live with that. This time around, did the shoot for less than 1 hour (including set up time) as opposed to 3.5 hrs last time... and got good shots at least 1 out of 5 or 6. I will revisit this shoot in the future as well... cos if you love what you do... whos gonna stop you :D.....

Here are some of the results -

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Thanks
Akila. 

Snowflake take 2... The importance of freezing before you freez outside weather

I always believe in the 3 P's... Patience, Practice and Persistence. So, I thought to catch another snowflake in this really cold weather. Its important to understand that I hate cold weather a lot. So, going out to shoot this with a windchill of -20 C was really something.

So, here s what I did different... I selected a similar (much more darker) glove before hand and placed in the deep freezer about a day or two before the actual shoot (A person who read my blog suggested it :D ). Last time, the flake I caught seemed to have melted from a ends a lot. Noticing this from the naked eye is nearly impossible and you wanna kill yourself when you notice this on the computer :). So, I assumed that the melting was from the glove emitting some of my body heat. I also brought a chair out this time simply to block the sun and the wind which are your real enemy (apart from the cold). Apart from these two changes, the rest was pretty straight forward and like the last time. It was painful trying to catch the perfect formed shape and can come down to luck. Just before I reached my limit of tolerance, came across this little flake.. and if you go back to the one I shot before you ll see the difference and already frozen glove made to preserve the structure for just few more seconds for mw to capture it.  Let me know what you think... and here s the result.

Please consider that all copyrights are reserved for all material on this blog and cannot be reproduced without a written consent from the author. 

Thanks
Akila.