Liquids used for the ‘water drop’
Water drop, originally uploaded by Quaketronics Tom.
This water drop was one of the first photographs that we took using two SnapshotII strobes and the Quaketronics flash controller. You can see the pair of highlights in the picture, one from each strobe.
The drop is actually a mixture of alcohol and ethylene glycol (antifreeze), with some green food coloring added. The drop is landing in a white plate that has a thin layer of water in it. The water has a greenish hue because previous drops were mixed in with the water.
We adjusted the mixture of alcohol and antifreeze to control the shape of the drop. Adding more alcohol flattens out the drop.
To get good depth of field, we used as large an F-stop as possible. This required the most light. To get the most light, the strobe lights are positioned very close to the water drop.
