LeggNets Digital Capture

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Strawberry Splashdown


How about a splash of RED to brighten up your Wednesday?

I made this capture of a strawberry splashing into a glass of red liquid (simulated strawberry lemonade) by placing a studio flash directly to the right and slightly above the glass of liquid. I fired the camera with one hand while dropping the strawberry with the other. The timing was a bit tricky at first, but after a few attempts it wasn't too difficult.

Tips

- Fill the glass completely to the rim to cause the splash to swell over the top.
- Use barn-doors (or a similar barrier) to block the strobe from lighting the backdrop and/or the lens.
- Use a longer lens (medium telephoto) to get your camera out of the splash zone.
- Use a cable release or remote to fire the camera (while dropping the fruit).
- Use water with food coloring for the liquid (the sugar in real beverages can leave your camera gear a bit 'sticky' if it gets splashed).

Here's another example:


Over the Top

Shoot away and have fun!


Equipment: Canon 30D, Canon 70-200 f/4L lens - 1/250 second, f/13, ISO 100

Labels:

4 Comments:

Blogger Jeremy Hall said...

Looks like a fun photo experiment. If you were taking product shots professionally I can see the practicality, otherwise fun can be enough :) Good tips, especially on getting your camera far enough away. I like top one much better as it seemed to stop the motion of the splash much better. Good stuff.

February 21, 2007  
Blogger LeggNet said...

Thanks for the comment. In addition to being fun to shoot, these are the types of shots that usually sell pretty well on iStockPhoto. I've uploaded them to my iStock portfolio, so we'll have to see how they do.

February 21, 2007  
Blogger poody said...

I have an Olympus 545 digital camera do you thiunk I could do something like this with that?

February 21, 2007  
Blogger LeggNet said...

@poody:

The challenge in taking a shot like this with a point-and-shoot camera (as opposed to an SLR) is triggering the camera at the right moment. Most point/shoot cameras have a slight lag which would be a challenge. If you were able to trip the shutter at the right time, and if you used lighting that could be tripped via slave by your cameras built-in flash, then you should be able to take a shot like this.

Thanks for the comment.

February 21, 2007  

Post a Comment

<< Home