[GainfulShrimp]

My new toy arrived the other week - the ST-E2 Speedlite Transmitter. Although dying to play with it, I have only managed to get it out on one occasion in between baby duties. Ah well!

Anyway, here's the result of my first session with the ST-E2: a macro shot for your viewing pleasure (and C&C please).



I used my 430EX to freeze the water droplets mid-fall, with the flower seen in the background refracted in the drops. Lens was my trusty Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro.

I'm quite pleased with the result although I wish I'd had more time to get the perfect drop in the perfect place; I didn't use any fancy flash trigger to sense the passing drop or anything like that, so it took many attempts to catch a drop in a half-decent position.

One thing I noticed was that because each drop acts as a sort of lens, it's not possible to get both the drop itself and the flower image refracted in it both in focus at once. You can have either, but not both (at least not using an aperture wide enough to guarantee the flash freezes the action!).

I feel I could improve on the composition with a slight adjustment of the set up and lots more time for trial and error... but wanted to show you this as it might be ages til I get another opportunity to dust off the tripod.

Any comments, tips or suggestions are very welcome.

[silkstone]

Fascinating shot, and it looks almost as if the drops were added afterwards. (I know they weren't )

Can you really not freeze the action with a smaller aperture? The flash duration should be very short at this distance.

Good work, anyway.

[danpen]

Great shot, getting the flower reflected in all three droplets is really good. I'm currently trying to perfect a light sensor arrangement to do some droplet shots with a bit more control.

I have a syringe which is slowly squeezed by a lego motor arrangement and a light sensor that should stop the syringe being squeezed and fire the camera. Everything works except the lightsensor is not sensitive enough to trigger on the droplet from the syringe (works with a drop from a tap but that's much bigger). It's amazing what a grown man will own up to spending his weekends on .

I'd like to see more of these when you've had chance to do them.

cheers

Dan

[neutron]

gainfulshrimp; its always great to see something original that has this much interest. i am not familiar with this flash unit but i will check it out. thanks for the image! neutron +

[Rob Barron]

Shrimpy, that's a cracking shot, what the heck are you worrying about? There is nothing wrong at all with the position of the drops and frankly if you got them in a 'perfect' location, I'd be suspicious anyway LOL.

It's a lovely shot and very well done so stop worrying and just enjoy a bit of glory

Cheers,
Rob

[cotter]

Stunning original work..well played!!

[robbo]

Wow! Very impressive.

[chrisa]

Very nice shot! Also good tip on the focusing on reflections.

[GainfulShrimp]

Thanks for the comments everyone, much appreciated.

danpen - you've definitely got too much time on your hands! lol

This was just using the kitchen sink, but I found that I didn't get good drops at first. I had to unscrew a little cap from the end of the tap/spout thingey - it had some sort of grid in the end to make the water flow better and make it fall in thin streams rather than drops. Once that was removed, I got some good dripping action!

Next time I know I'll have some photo time, I'll buy some flowers for the missus and then steal a stem or two to have another go... hehe

[j sotelo]

I need a lot of practice on these I cant get them to look like that..Great shot

[GainfulShrimp]

Thanks Sotelo, I used a Manfrotto 454 'micro positioning plate' to make small adjustments easier and held a knife in the path of the falling drops so that I could easily see where the point of focus was. Despite this, the short depth of field and unpredictable shape and size of the drops meant that some luck was involved!

[Dave Canon]

Well done, super picture!!

Dave