The Elusive Crowing Water Crop

I have wanted to capture a crowing water drop for a long time, I've tried more times that I can count and was never successful.

With no fancy equipment, no strobes, no contraptions to drip the water for me I was beginning to think it was impossible.

So I tried again, and finally caught that crown.

I placed a clear glass bowl in my stainless kitchen sink, filled it up and stood there for twenty minutes trying to get just the right drip from the faucet. This was really frustrating because the faucet handle is touchy...as soon as I'd let go of it the drip would stop. Finally I got just the right drip going. Not too fast to disturb the water in the bowl, not so slow that I'd fall asleep with a camera stuck to my face.

I was shooting downward with my hotshoe flash titled so that it bounced off the wall behind the sink. I had to really play with the exposure since a stainless sink is so reflective.

This was shot with a 50mm f2.8 lens.

I finally settled on:

Spot metering
Shutter: 1/125
F-stop: 22.0
ISO speed: 400

I then fired off a lot of shots using continuous mode, which wasn't as fast as it could have been given that the flash unit had to recycle each time. I fired off a LOT. And finally was able to catch that elusive crowing water drop that I have been obsessed with for quite some time.

Not quite as impressive as some I've seen done with a lot of specialized equipment, but it can be done.

The trick? Just the right drip!