August 11th, 2009 | 
Once again we were playing with water and fruits. Small inflated pool, 3 Canon Speedlite Flash units and some handy support hardware makes it possible. Around 1/10.000 second flash duration can freeze any splash, only you need to worry about is a light distribution: reflectors and white backdrops are must to be here.
I was using canon 180mm Macro lens with f16 aperture to increase DOF, as water was moving berries away from a focus plane during a splash. Berries and fruits were hang on a rails with help of tiny fishing line.
The results are below
Water splash photography with fruits
Hith speed photography with fruits and water
Water splash image with red apple
Hith speed photography of red apple and water
More photos like this I have in my portfolio.
Like it? Want to learn how to create photos like these? Take a look at what I have for you:
About The Author: Alex Koloskov
The lighting magician, owner of AKELstudio, Inc.
These pictures are amazing,
For my project at school I am creating a nonprofit website to help educate young women about health and nutrition. I have looked through a range of images to use as some banners and as a background of my site. I am currently trying to contact the owner of these images as I am aware of the copyright issues. As the pictures taken by you are the best.
Kind Regards
-Taylor
Remarkable shots Alex,
I can’t exceed 250 shutter speed on my canon 100mm macro , I keep getting black screen ,seems the camera’s curtain can’t sync with the flash speed .
Any thoughts.
Thanks
Nasser
Nasser,
This is what we call x-sync speed of the camera: you can’t get faster sync with studio monolights, as 1/250 is a max speed when your camera shutter opens completely.
On faster shutter speeds, shutter does not open fully, but opens a small gap and “scan” through the sensor. This is what you see now: black screen with small gap in it, right? This is what flash has lit on a sensor through partially opened shutter.
The only one way to get flash worked with faster speeds on your camera is to use dedicated Canon (or Nikon if you are Nikon guy:-) flash with hi-speed mode. In this mode flash makes a sequence of flashes instead of one to cover the whole sensor, while shutter moves it’s gap though it.
Medium format cameras as well as point and shot has leaf shutter in the lens, which allows such cameras to have faster x-sync, up to 1/2000 sec.
However, the best way to do hi-speed photography is to use high speed strobe, freezing action by short flash, not a shutter:
If no other lights percent in a studio (or it’s significance is near zero) fast duration flash may deliver up to 1/12000/sec impulse of light, which will freeze almost any action, regardless on how long shutter stay open, 1/250 or 1/10 sec: the result will be the same: “frozen” by short light impulse objects..
This is how i did mine: canon speedlites fires at about 1/10000 sec duration at medium power, and I used them in manual mode, having 1/250sec shutter on camera.
~Alex
When I clicked on the link, I was thinking I would see some aquarium shots, but what a surprise. These are awesome photos. You are quite talented. I have some aquarium shots on my Live Discus Fish website. Unfortunately, I did not take the photos. But, man, would I like to learn how to do what you did here!
Wayne,
Thank you, sir!
In fact, I do owe 2 aquariums, and one of them quite big (probably not as yours): 50 Gal freshwater.
Having a discus is my dream, but so far I do not have them: breeding angelfishes (few times) is a max I’ve got so far. I’ll post some photos when I’ll get a chance, my aquarium looks pretty nice: with CO2 injection plants are going crazy:-)
awesome fruits!! i love these pics!!