Help me capture a water drop

18T

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exactly as the title says. i need help. I am clueless as to how to do this. i want to capture a drop of condensation coming off a leaf by itself, zoomed in as much as i can. can i do this with just a regular camera like the sony DSC-H1? that is what i use right now. heres are 2 guide pics that i took with the sony.. just imagine droplets coming off of them.:ninja:

yellow3.jpg


yellow2.jpg
 
'Coming off a leaf' as in when it's in the air? Or as in it's just hanging on the tip?

If it's just hanging on the tip, that shouldn't bee too bad. If you look enough you'll probably find a drop that's hanging there, or at least be able to set one up with a pipette.

If you want to actually catch it falling... that's different. You'll need incredibly lucky timing, along with good light to get a decent picture. Some people use trigger mechanisms and such, but it's probably not worth it for this particular use.
 
With compact camera like yours you'll need, as flamingice said, very lucky timing. This is because of the huuuuuuge delay between pressing the shutter and the picture being taken.
Don't think there's a real easy way to do it im afraid :(
 
Or you could use a pipette (as mentioned) to keep putting drops on the end of one of the leaves. As the drops will merge, eventually it'll fall. Set up the camera on a tripod, point it at the leaf you want to shoot, make sure your hand will be out of (above) shot. fill the pipette with water and drop the water onto the top of the tip drop by drop. When you think it's about to go start shooting.
Ideally you'd need the camera in drive mode and with some sort of remote. May be difficult with the camera you have.
But you will have very little time in between the drop falling and it going out of the photograph's frame. So rather than shoot when it falls, you'll have to predict when it falls. Hence when you think it's going to go, start shooting even if it doesn't.
It'll still take some trial and error and luck, but is possible...

Good luck!

Edit: or you could cheat even more, load the tip of the leaf with water with the pipette, then drop a drop behind the leaf. From the perspective of the shot, if you get it right, it'll look like it came off the leaf. A full-on cheat, but could work... ;)
 
You can wait for it and make sure the autofocus has already done its job so that you don't miss it. I know that on my Canon P&S if you push the shutter half way (you can feel it) the autofocus goes on and what I would do is just hold it and when the time comes just finish pressing it. Does that make sense? I'm not sure if its the same case with sony.
 
My camera has a motion capture setting. It takes up to 3 seconds of about 30 pictures per second, which would help with the timing a bit. Don't know whether yours has that though. Just an idea.
 
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