Tag:weekend projects

Water Drop Refractions

Water Drop Refractions is the fourth in our weekend projects on VPC. Our weekly club event to do at home while we are still at stage 3 for COVID-19. Last week we were playing with Frozen Flowers. This week it’s rain repellant.

With the water drop refractions – I really don’t think there is a science to this.. it seems to be more blind luck and patience… or it could be my brain doesn’t process science well. I tried both brightly patterned backgrounds and flowers. Out of the two, I definitely found the backgrounds much easier to get a sharper focus on than the flowers.  I also played around with different F stops from F2.8 to F11, and I’m not sure which was better.

water drop refractions by bevlea ross
Olympus 60mm Macro 1/100, F3.5 ISO400 (taken with the background on ipad screen so its ‘lit’ more)

One thing I didn’t notice when taking the shots was the detail on the water drop refractions. These came up more prominently when I looked at them on the computer – but weren’t as noticeable on the back of the camera, maybe because the detail is so small on the rear screen. So get the focus sharp and be prepared to notice more detail once you start editing.

water drop refractions by bevlea ross
Olympus 60mm Macro 1/50 F2.8 ISO 400
Supplies
  • Piece of glass – such as from an old photo frame and sized at around 11×14.  You can pick them up quite cheaply from Kmart or the Chinese variety stores, or borrow one off the wall, (we won’t be damaging it) and you can put it back later.  Leave it in the frame so you don’t cut your fingers, just remove the backing
  • Invisible Glass or RainX – from the auto shops.  It is a windshield rain repellent so your glass will stay clear.  I picked up Invisible glass is $7.99 at supercheap for 103ml bottle
  • Water in a spray bottle or hypodermic syringe (no needle)
  • Flowers such as gerberas, daises, etc M&M’s, smarties, tic-tac’s, leaves, placemats, toys, Lego people, small toys, coloured cardstock, etc
  • Camera on tripod
  • Lenses: macro or anything in the 24-105 range
water drop refractions by bevlea ross
Olympus 60mm Macro 1/125 F2.8 ISO 400

Setup

I worked outside on the patio as it saved dealing with extra lighting.

Setup on the patio

Method

  • Clean glass with glass cleaner, then wipe the glass over with the rain repellent.  Let dry and repeat once more.
  • Place your glass between two chairs or a stack of books, paint tins etc.  Glass needs to be about 40-50cm off the ground.
  • Spray water on the glass in the centre with the spray bottle or add drops using a syringe.  The rain repellent will cause the water drops to form beads.
  • Place a background under the glass.  This can be paper or coloured board.   You can also google coloured backgrounds and either put them on your tablet under the glass or print them out and place them under the glass. I downloaded mine and printed them out.
  • Free Colourful Backgrounds: Pexels.com and Wallpaperscraft.com
  • Place the camera and tripod directly over the glass shooting straight down. If you have a centre column tripod try and reverse the tripod so the camera hangs underneath.
  • Focus on the beads of water.  I found manual focus is best for this.  Once you are focused, you can move the background around under the glass without refocusing unless you move the tripod.
  • Put different objects on the background underneath the glass to capture their reflection in the beads of water – use a solid background when using objects (you can use 2-3 plain backgrounds at once for more interest, just not patterned backgrounds with objects)
gerberas under the glass
Olympus Macro 1/15 F11 ISO 400
gerberas under the glass
Olympus Macro 1/15 F11 ISO 400
water drop refractions by bevlea ross
Olympus Macro 1/15 F11 ISO 400

While I used a macro for my shots – you can also shoot them with a standard lens or even your phone. Check out Olympus Learn for more ideas on the water drop refractions. I did have loads of fun with this.. and will definitely have another go…

© Bevlea Ross