Topic: The Milk Drop Experiment

I also posted this over at GN but thought I'd throw it here as well since not all of you go over to GN.

The Milk Drop Experiment
I was really bored today so I decided to do some experimentation with my new flash and a saucer of milk. At first I started with an eyedropped and got some decent results with it. A'la;



But after a while I got bored with the small, straight drops and decided to go bigger. So, what did I have around? Frozen peas!



The peas gave bigger splashes but ended up looking the same as the drops once cropped and such. I decided to get more drastic and begin throwing the peas into the saucer.

At first I was horrible aim, I was using my dominant hand to fire the cam so I had to use my left to throw. Peas were all over my kitchen table. Finally I got some consistency and timing and got some pretty good results:






You can see the rest right here.

I found the two most difficult things about this little endeavor were getting the lighting right and focusing. My cam doesn't have TTL focusing so I had to stick a spoon in the milk right about where I thought the splashes would be in order to focus. Then I messed with the lighting to accomodate the desired aperture and shutter speeds. That one took a while.

I ended up using my desklamp directly aimed in the center of the saucer and bounced my flash off an off-white wall nearby. I think the results turned out pretty nice for my first try.

I think next time I'll invest in a couple clamp lights with higher wattage bulbs to pump up the brightness.

Final exposure values:

Aperture = f/2.8
Shutter = 1/1000 sec
ISO = 100

If you've ever done this type of thing before I'd love to hear about your experiences for the next time I try something like this.


:::krets.net:::

[This message has been edited by krets (edited 06-05-2003).]

oooohhhh... I love it. Very cool.

That first one is awesome. So is the 3rd one.

Make em into wall papers pwwwease! The picatures in your gallery are too freakin small.

Yah should use pop next time... get some bubblahs in there, woo!

When I started reading this thread, the first thing that came to mind was a picture from Life magazine called 'Milk Crown,' I believe taken by Prof. H. Edgerton... I think... Very similar to this: http://www.well.com/~fjf/hispeed.html


I'll post a link to the picture if I find it somewhere...
Anyone else know which one I'm talking about?

[edit1: I found mention of it here, talking about his picture 'Waterdrops': http://202.246.238.137/mitamura/vrimaging/03-3Pulsedlaser.html

[edit2: Ah ha, knew if I looked long enough I'd find it... http://edgerton.safeshopper.com/4/cat4.htm?571
Also has the classic "Making Applesauce at M.I.T."

[This message has been edited by Lord_Fukutoku (edited 06-05-2003).]

I like these photographs krets, I remember years ago trying (unsucessfully) to get the same type of effect when I had a 35mm SLR. I ended up with rolls of film of blurred, or pre/post splashes. and a lens covered in whatever liquid I was using at the time.
How did you manage to synchronise the moment of impact so well?
You have inspired me to try it out again with my DC. Although I am still not totally comfortable with all its features and limitations yet, only practice with using it will overcome that.
The shape formed in the first two pictures reminded me of that fantastic image produced, I think, with a scanning tunneling electron microscope called the Quantum Corral

Nice Krets. I like the top one.

Nice shots. Again Edgerton comes to mind. He did great things with strobes. He has this one shot I can't seem to find on the web. It;s a portrait of himself. In one hand he holds a playing card, the other hand is plugging one ear.. the card has just been torn in two by a 30 caliber bullet which is frozen right there in front of him! Oh yeah, heh, he did some fantastic milk crowns and lots of other stuff too.

I did a little searching.. I'm amazed at how little technique is available on the web in regards to this sort of thing. I found this link which could be usefull. If you have time and desire it could be the start of an obsession too methinks.

Have you thought about lighting the shot ~only~ with your strobe? The flash duration is probably much quicker than your fastest shutter speed and would freeze things really well. If the ambient light was really low (or the lens was stopped down really far) you cold just shoot a long exposure (I'm assuming you have a manual mode where you can just dial in whatever shutter/aperture settings you want and the cam won't argue) and use the test fire button to fire the strobe off camera, maybe pointed straight down at the dish or something. Then you'd just need to play with exposure/ flash distance/ dexterity. Just a thought.

Keep us posted, I'm dying to see if (and how) you manage to get the crown shape.

Yeah, that's going to be my next attempt, getting that crown going. There's an excellent example of the crown this week at http://www.dpchallenge.com just look at the winner of the "Liquid" challenge.

I'm also going to do some with a lightbulb, I think that would look cool too.

:::krets.net:::