Let it rain
by gyaban

Comment:

Originally posted by RianBotes: Excellent shot. Deserving Blue and Im curious to know your setup here? Could you please give us some information on this? Especially the lighting and background.

Sure thing. The flash was obviously on the upper left (1/32th), pointing at the pencil. The room was dark. I had a standard white piece of paper on the table. The macro lens was parallel to the table: in fact there is no specific background, the transition from white to black is simply due to the absence of ambient light in the room.

Let it rain
by gyaban

Comment:

Originally posted by drew_makeanimpact: Was wondering what the bulb effect did compared to using a shutter speed of 1/4000 for example?

I am not sure about that, but I suppose it could work. My problem here was not the shutter speed, but the synchronization of the pencil's impact with the exposure: for this shot, the flash was triggered 9ms after the sound (the microphone being really close), so there is no way I would have done it by triggering the camera itself (takes about 100-150ms on the 5D).

Let it rain
by gyaban

Comment:
Oh wow, I'm so thrilled with this result :-) Thank you all!

I really didn't think it would make so good, in fact I was really pessimistic when doing it. I had no good results after 130 tries, my fingers were hurting, and I was sleepy... decided to shoot some more just before going to bed, and this one appeared on the LCD screen!

La Gazza Ladra (The Thieving Magpie)
by gyaban

Comment:
Thank you all, your comments are highly appreciated.

A Kind Of Magic
by gyaban

Comment:
Thank you all for your kind comments :-)

Boom boom
by gyaban

Comment:
Sorry for the late reply Manav, didn't see your question until now.

1. The cup is quite small, it's an espresso cup. I tried also with a bigger cup (like for tea) but the droplets and splashes were just too small when compared to it.
2. Again, the trick is to use a small cup, so that everything looks big :-) I was also using a 25mm macro tube along with the 200mm lens, so that I could focus from much nearer and fill the frame. About the droplets' shape, honestly I'm not sure... they just came out that way. Probably due to the shape of the small "funnel" from where the droplets were falling.

Hope this helps!

Gliding duck
by Neat

Comment:
Sorry, I did not fell in love with this photo. Some explanations:
- The composition is a bit too narrow, I think: since the duck is moving to the left, I would like to see a bit more to the left too. This usually gives me a better feeling of the subject.
- The motion isn't particularly speedy here, so it is probably less spectacular than other shots in the contest.
- The light isn't too good, I am guessing this was a cloudy day? Always tricky... and installing flashes near the subject is not always easy.
- Finally, the photo is not very sharp (the edges in the feathers for example are not well delimited)

Just my 2 cents, hope this helps.

Summer Splash
by yjoshi

Comment:
Sorry, I didn't like this photo much, due to the yellow thing (candy?) being out of focus.
Of course, I know how hard it is to have a good depth of field while also freezing the action... but then I somewhat would have prefered the focus on the yellow thingy, even with the drops out of focus.
Just my 2 cents.

Gotcha!
by quickdraw3

Comment:
You caught his catch :-) Very nice timing.

Powder Room
by Lonni

Comment:
Great idea, I just love this shot. Clever and well executed, congrats!