Spray, sprinkle or splash: Create beautifully balanced light in fast-shutter photography

Besides a fast shutter, there’s a few tricks to capturing beautiful photographs of water droplets. The first trick to learn: Patience.

You will need a few things before you get started. I recommend a macro lens, tripod,  light source (speed light or continuous), remote shutter, a colorful backdrop, and a plastic bag with a tiny hole (hanging from something to keep its place).

With your camera in Manual Mode, experiment with shutter speed. Most speed lights don’t work past a shutter speed of 1/250, but if you’re using continuous light, you can use 1/1000 or faster.

Practice with your droplet. With your camera set to auto-focus, place something small underneath your water drops that your camera can focus in on. Once you have your camera in sharp focus, set it to manual focus, and start shooting away. Take lots of photos, this way you have a better chance to capture beautiful water droplets.

Don Komarechka captured some beautiful water droplets HERE, and see more beautiful photos on Tooft Design’s blog.

Another fun subject to capture using a fast shutter speed is sugar. The small granules of sugar are so beautiful.

I captured a photo with a little, and then a lot of sugar. While I would never use this much sugar on a strawberry, I love the way the sugar bounces off the strawberry in this next photo:

This last commercial-style photo was taken using a small spritz bottle and continuous light. The fast shutter helps to capture the tiny mist of water droplets in the air behind the bottle. I love the way it turned out

For some more amazing fast shutter speed ideas, check out these posts:

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Start/For Art

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