Hand Water Droplet

I find water droplets pictures are cool but I thought it would be even cooler if the impact would happen in a hand. I wanted to capture a crown effect, not just a splash. You will need a buddy for this and my good friend Joel helped me with this shot. We also used one of his flashes.

So here's the setup:

We have a ziplock bag hanging from the ceiling, 1 Yongnuo flash YN565EX on the right with an umbrella diffuser, 1 Yongnuo flash YN560 III on the left, camera in the middle and I placed a blanket on my ping pong table to absorb some light just to be safe. I wanted a black background. Oh and of course a bucket to catch the water. This will make some mess so be prepared with a towel.

Timing the water droplet wasn't easy but here are some tips. First, place a string where it hangs off the bag. The water will run down the string and accumulate a bigger droplet before descending. Second, don't put too much water in the bag. This will make the tempo way too fast and much harder to time.

At first, we weren't getting a crown, just a splash. The reason for this is because our hand was not flat enough. Even though in these pictures they look cupped, they're relatively flat. You don't want too flat either because you do need a bit of resting water in your palm.

Manually focusing on this was hard. My focus point is too close but that could also be my buddy moving a bit. Even though I'm at F/11, I'm close to my subject which makes the depth of field somewhat thin.

Tip to self for next time: Place a small object which you could easily distinguish if you're focused or not. Also, don't be too close to your subject for this shot. Don't try to fill the frame. We have high-resolution cameras now so by being a little further away, your depth of field will be thicker and cropping a bit won't make any difference in quality.

Here are my settings for this shot. This was taken with my Fujifilm X-T20 + Rokinon 50mm 1.2. The right flash (YN565EX) was set the 1/2 power at 24mm and the umbrella is about 20cm (7.8in) from the subject. The left flash (YN560 III) is set to 1/128 at 24mm and that one is about 80cm (31in) from the subject. Both flashes are in a 45 degree angle.

This is out of camera converted to black and white (Adobe Monochrome).

I bumped the shadows down and upped the contrast a bit. I added clarity only to the water crown. I also removed some distraction with Gimp.

Even though I didn't nail the focus, I'm still happy with this shot.

50mm 1/180s F/11 ISO 200