water droplet splash - using homemade triggers

[monobrow]

These droplets were taken using a 1d mark III, canon 100mm macro, speedlite 430, ET-2 wireless transmitter, tripod and homemade camera triggers with adjustable delay.

The hardest part believe it or not is getting the lighting correct and getting the backgrounds to work properly. I did try lighting the scene properly with some bowens lights, but the flash burst was far too long to freeze the water droplet explosion.

Anyway, enough talking for now... here is a few pics... WDYT?

[colin C]

Re: water droplet splash - using homemade triggers

Superb and particularly interesting to me, as I am doing a session with water droplets at the local camera club. But, I have always done it through anticipation and a little luck and would be really interested in some info on the triggers you used.

Colin

[monobrow]

Re: water droplet splash - using homemade triggers

thanks!
essentially what i've got is a laser proximity trigger, which i've made an adjustable bracket to attach to a standard light stand (saves building my own stand :-) )
it also has a bit of steel tubing infront of the sensor so i can place a bit of hosing through it, the other end is attached to a medical syringe.
This allowed me to control the droplets of water but also trigger the delay circuit which will then trigger the camera.

Apart from the laser proximity sensor, which i got from RS electronics, it's all homemade with components bought from several suppliers (including Maplins, Farnell, RS).
I'm using a 556 timer IC as a delay circuit for the camera. Adjustable from 1ms to 1 second. Typically I find around 20ms perfect at 50cm height from the tray. But you can fine tune the timer to catch different stages of the water droplet explosion. i.e. still in midflight, distortion of the droplet as it just hits the tray, etc.

I was particularly concerned for the welfare of the camera, so i've made sure this was optically isolated, so abselutely no harm can be caused to the camera.

The camera remote socket has three pins, one ground, one focus, one shutter release. Shorting out the shutter release to ground will fire the camera.

You could use this whole setup to fire a flashgun or studio lights instead and use the camera on bulb function or slow shutter to catch a balloon exploding.

[colin C]

Re: water droplet splash - using homemade triggers

Many thanks for the explanation ..................... most of that went right over my head, but I think I know a man who can!

Colin

[monobrow]

Re: water droplet splash - using homemade triggers

no problem. It was quite good to review how i did it, as it made me think about how to improve it. :-)

I don't have any schematics of circuitry as i've done it all from the top of my head, but i do have the CAD drawings of the circuit boards i designed, should this be of any help to your friend?

[barry1958]

Re: water droplet splash - using homemade triggers

Good stuff , I have a couple of hamemade triggers , but have not done anything for ages . here's one of my best shots
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pace195...7617099182455/

[russelljtdyer]

Re: water droplet splash - using homemade triggers

Those are spectacular shots, monobrow. I found your description confusing, though, since I can't visualize the items you described. Can you post a photo of the trigger and all?