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Discovering Water Droplets

As look back through my archive of photography spanning back to the early 80's I found several common subject matters that seemed to be an interest to me. One of those was water droplets in a wide variety of scenes. Not only were there images with cute little dew drops on the petals of flowers but I found that I have been captivated by water droplets for as long as I have been captivated by photography. Maybe you have too...

The image shown here in this pop up window is one of my newest pieces of work in this subject matter. Captured on a foggy morning, the sky provides a nice overall grey background. This helps isolate each individual droplet from every thing else, but sometimes you may not wish to isolate the droplet as shown in the second image of this pop up window.

What Else Besides Flowers?

I found this image in my archive dating back to around 1981. The mixture of water drops and chrome drew me to this trunk latch to capture it on Kodachrome film.

During that same time frame of my life I saw where I had captured quite a few images with water droplets as the subject. As you can see from the second image in this pop up window that selective depth of field can help emphasize the water droplets.

For the most control over your water droplet images, it will be to your advantage to use a medium to high speed film. In both these images captured on Kodachrome 64, I probably exposed them at f/5.6 or more at the slowest hand holdable speed. Whereas if I had a faster film I could have stopped down a little more in the trunk latch image. But then in the case of the tree limbs, I really wouldn't have wanted much more depth. Although in any circumstance I would always prefer to have maximum control over depth of field.

For me, depth of field is of primary importance when I capture images and when it comes to water droplets having maximum control of depth is crucial. There will still be plenty of times when you can shoot at almost wide open and get the image you desire as seen in the third image of this pop up window. But on the opposite end of things, you can see in the fifth image of this window that the smallest aperture I could possibly get was needed to get the depth it took to cover the scene.

The Aperture Tells It All

Here again was another image that played right into the hand of my digital cameras abilities. One of the greatest features to me in using a digital camera is the ability to change the ISO in the middle of a roll.... well actually in the middle of a card. In this image shown here I set the ISO up to 500, but I had just captured the previous image on the card at ISO 200.

Another key factor in my favoritism to shooting with digital is that at ISO 500 you get no where near the noise as compared to the extreme grain apparent in a film of that speed. (Yes I am sure I just ticked off a bunch of film hard heads, but I call it as I see it) In this image captured at f/18. You can actually see the magnified details inside the droplets. It is at this point we have gone to the extreme as to where at first glance the droplets appear to be much bigger than life. But yet in this usage and in one of the trunk latch you can see that the subject still remains the same. Although in the trunk latch image the subject is what I call a shared subject, one that shares elements of the scene as a primary focal point of the image.

In the second image of this pop up window I still kept my camera in fairly close, but let the sunlight have a strong presence in the scene. Again it gives these tiny droplets a larger than life appearance, especially when viewed in a 11x14 print.

As we have discovered that there are two main ways to incorporate water droplets in our image. One is to pull back a little and let the scene become a great subject covered in droplets. While the other is to move in even closer and let the droplets become the only subject of the scene.

While were at it, lets not just focus on capturing in color. Those same droplets will give a scene an entirely different look when captured in black and white. Although you won't be able to dig deep into the droplets as close up as you can in color, you can put the focus more on the shapes of the droplets.

Here you see that the droplet puts and even weight on the subject as to which one is more important, the iron pipe or the droplets that look like bumps. Or even the one droplet with the clear view through it along side the dark droplets.

Of course there is one small catch to photographing water droplets... you will need to use a macro lens or close up filters. Even using a telephoto that will get in close just wont do what the macro lens will do. And if you are capturing with a digital SLR that is not a full frame model, you will be able to get a ratio even bigger than 1:1 and capture the droplets at larger than life size.

Now go out and have some fun... early in the morning or after the rain, you'll love the results.