Skip to main content

Ink Drop Photos


ISO 100, Aperture F9, Exposure 1/60s, Focal Length 50mm

Yesterday I worked on taking some ink drop photos. I have been wanting to try this type of photo out for a while it is similar water drop photography but a little slower paced. 
As a precaution, since things can get messy when working with water and ink the whole set was placed in my bathroom, specifically the shower. For this shoot I used the following:

• Step ladder                  • Canon 80-D       
• Fish tank                       • Radio transmitter for flashes
• 2 light stands               • Camera trigger
• Boom arm                    • Tripod
• 2 speed lights              • 18-200mm lens
• Soft box                        • Water
• 2 colors of ink             • White matte board
For the setup I placed the fish tank on top of the step ladder to raise it to an appropriate shooting level.  Behind the fish tank attached to the shower wall I hung a piece of white matte board to act as the background (my shower is an off-white color). Then I put one light stand to camera left and attached a boom arm to it so that I could place a flash with a soft box over the top of the fish tank.  I then placed a second light stand and flash to the left of the camera at a 45-degree angle to the front of the fish tank.  The camera was placed on a tripod perpendicular to the front of the fish tank, with the lens zoomed to only have the front face of the tank in the shot.   (See image on left.) Once everything was in position, I filled the tank with cold water, and used a nail file point to focus the lens.  To take the photos I had a trigger attached to the camera to activate the shutter, while I shot ink from an eyedropper into the water. 

I shot all the frames at ISO 100.  I shot 136 frames at an aperture of F9 and 25 frames at F5.6.  I shot most of the frames at F9 to ensure depth of field and sharp focus across the image.  I shot 136 frames at 1/60s which was a mistake since this was a moving object, so even though I was using flash there is still some motion blur. I shot 25 frames at 1/200s.  My focal length ranged from 35mm to 190mm with 127 frames shot at 50mm.  I shot a total of 161 frames and kept 50 frames to edit.

I edited the images first in lightroom to correct white balance, do some basic edits, and cropping. I then pulled the images into Photoshop to apply a curves layer and adjust some of the shadows and highlights.  Below are a few of the images from the session.


ISO 100, Aperture F9, Exposure 1/60s, Focal Length 50mm
ISO 100, Aperture F5.6, Exposure 1/200s, Focal Length 130mm

ISO 100, Aperture F9, Exposure 1/60s, Focal Length 50mm
ISO 100, Aperture F9, Exposure 1/60s, Focal Length 50mm

I like how most of the images turned out, however if I do this again, I will need to make improvements to the set up.  In the raw images some of the shadows and creases were lost due to the lighting, thus I would change the lighting so there are two soft boxes, one on each side of the fish tank instead of one above and one to the side.  Second, and most importantly I would increase my shutter speed to really freeze the motion in the image and get a sharper more defined lines.  Finally, I would use a few additional colors.  But overall, for the first time taking this type of photograph, the images are respectable.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

2024 Year in Review and Looking Forward to 2025

This year felt a little off for me; I think it was because I was in a mental recovery mode.  I finished my graduate program in June and immediately went on a week-long vacation to Palm Springs.  I do not recommend Palm Springs in June; way too hot.  I didn’t realize it at the time, but the graduate program mentally and physically exhausted me, which I think showed in some of my creative work.  But being able to work with great people like Natalie Hanrion , Coralinx Cosplay , and Anastasia B kept me motivated.  While I didn’t attend as many Cosplay Photo Shoot events as in the past, the ones I did attend were helpful in keeping the creativity flowing.  I also took some time this year to reflect on a few things and will be making some changes for 2025. In 2024, I shot 6241 frames, which is a 30-percent decrease from last year.  I edited 3187 frames, which is a 40-percent decrease from 2023.  I think this year, I started focusing on being very min...
Post a Comment
Read more

Whispering Waters

On July 19th, I drove up to Poughkeepsie, NY to attend the Whispers of Waterhouse photo event held by Everlore Events . This was an all-day event, which included a light lunch, vendors, arts, and crafts areas, and three different styled shooting locations.  I was one of the roaming photographers for this event, which means you work with models who are not currently working with a featured photographer (who have schedules), and can wander between all three shooting locations at your convenience.  For this event I used: Canon R6 1 Speed light Trigger Umbrella Gels 24 - 105mm lens Camera Settings: This was an outside shoot that had sets in heavy forested areas, out on a pond, and sunny meadows; thus, I was adjusting the settings to the lighting conditions.  I used ISO 100 and 400.  My goal was to keep my aperture around f/4 to achieve a nice background blur; however, depending on the conditions, I had to stop down to f/9 and f/11 to manage the light...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Optical Spot

The weekend of November 16 th , I got a little ambitious and did four sessions to test out the Lindsey Adler Optical Spot .     I originally rented the optical spot from LensRentals , but that session had to be rescheduled; however, I didn’t want the rental to go to waste, thus a TFP weekend. For this session, I used: Photography Equipment Props/Miscellaneous Cannon R6 24-105 mm Lens Transmitter/Trigger 2 Phottix Strobe 2 FJ400 Westcott Strobes 1 Optical Spot 2 strip boxes 1 bell reflector grids 2 C-stands 2 light stands Sandbags Backdrop stand Savage Fashion Grey Seamless Gobos Gels Spyder Color Checker Card A-clamps Star filter Red Curtains Posing stool     The set up While I did four shoots in one weekend, the lighting setup was basically the same for all four sessions; what changed was the gels and the gobos.  I started with a fashion grey seam...
Post a Comment
Read more