Something I wanted to try for quite a while….. Smoke….

Well here are some of my efforts. I used an insence stick as my smoke source and my Metz flash at 1/16 power. I used my EF-100mm macro lens but in hind sight this was not the best choice as I didn’t give myself much room to step back and take a wider view with cropping afterwards. Trying to focus on a moving smoke column when you are close up with a macro is a nightmare. The flash was placed around 50cm from the smoke (at about 2 o’clock from the camara position) and used without a diffuser.

Something I always wanted to try and finally decided to make a go of it…. A high speed photo of an object falling into a liquid. I decided a strawberry into milk would make a suitable subject and it fitted well with a task I had been set to capture something that suited the title “bon appetit”. My setup was basic with my  two Metz flash heads set at 1/32 an 1/64 power and placed diagonally at 45 degrees from the camera (one bottom left the other top right. As this was my first try at such a thing I simply left the heads unmodified but believe a diffuser would have been to my advantage to try to remove some of the shadows. I dropped that strawberry into the milk so many times the poor fruit started to become strawberry jam. It was not easy to synchronize the shot and hitting the milk. More often that not it was too early but mostly just too late. Also it does splash a bit. Next time I’ll wrap some cling-film around my flash head bodies. Anyway, here are some results….