This is my entry for the DIYP How I Took It 2012 Contest
http://www.diyphotography.net/howitookit2012
Water Droplets
It had been raining for a while and I was itching to get out and use my camera, so the only way I could satisfy my craving was to play around inside with, of all things, some water droplets!
Firstly, I wanted to find some pretty fabric, I ended up using a pillow case with a “Hawaiian” print on it, and I put it over a shoe box.
I placed the pillow-case-shoe-box about 15cm / ½ foot behind the tap on the kitchen sink.
I set my camera up on a tripod about 1.5 metres / 5 feet away from the sink, and had one of the dining chairs next to it because it was more comfortable to sit down.
I turned the tap on and off a bit until I got the right sort of drip coming out of it.
I used Aperture Priority mode and used the widest aperture my lens would let me. I used Auto Focus and locked the focus on the tap, and then switched it over to manual focus so that it wouldn’t try and focus on the pillowcase background. I don’t have an external flash, so was only using my camera’s inbuilt flash. I put it on continuous shooting mode and plugged in my remote shutter release. As the tap dripped, I just sat there and held the remote shutter button down and fired off HEAPS of shots over about a minute or so.
There were heaps of shots that weren’t any good, but definitely a few keepers!
I’m not a Photoshop user so the only thing I did post was crop the tap out of the picture.
Finally the settings I used were: ISO 400, f/5.6, 1/125
I hope this inspires you to go and have a go on a rainy day!
