Showing posts with label focus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label focus. Show all posts

Friday, June 12, 2009

Last Night's Drops - Cream Crowns

I made these...

Alien Crown

and..

English Crown

After seeing

I had not realised how HARD it would be to get a single crown like this..

There's a few challenges.

1). You need to drop a single drop of milk ACCURATELY into the centre of a small drop of milk/cream on the surface below.

2). You need to trigger the flash just as the crown forms.

3). If you muck it or the crown does not form.. You have to completely reset from scratch and do it all again.

This is really hard and mind numbingly repetitive.. I guess a photogate trigger would make this easier as you would be more likely to trigger on the crown forming and have to do it fewer times.. I dont have one, In the end I setup and shot around 120 times.

What's needed

4 eye-droppers, milk, cream, coloured dye, shiny reflective surface, 2 flashes

  1. Setup one dropper in a fixed position above the shiny reflective surface (I used the handle of a cheese grater that had a small hole in it (for hanging) with a weight on the other end)
  2. Mark the position that drops fall from the dropper
  3. Focus camera on the position that you marked so DOF is all around that area.
  4. Use one dropper to make a small (0.5cm) drop of milk exactly where the drops form.
  5. Use the other two droppers to dye alternate sides of the drop with different colour food dyes.
  6. REALLY quickly before the dyes mix, trigger your camera, drop a drop from the first eye-dropper and trigger your flash when you think it's hit. (Requires 3-4 hands!.. not easy if you do this on your own ;) )
  7. Check picture on your camera.. If it's no good then clean up the target area (carefully so it's still shiny) go back to 4 and start again.

If your lucky you might get something that's half decent.

Not recommended for the impatient!


Blue white crown of Perfectness