Dropping Water

Macro Water Drop Photography

Dropped Like Glass

Droplet

Hanging Before the Drop

Sprayed

Droplets

Dropping water on plants is a lot harder than it looks. Plants love water, right? Wrong! Plants are very good at repelling water and just letting roll off their shoulders – if plants had shoulders….

Macro water drop photography is pretty new to me and I had never tried capturing an image inside a water drop until this past weekend. I used a Tokina 11-14mm Macro lens to capture all of these images. I first zoomed in as close as I could get, then with my focus on manual, I moved my body back and forth until the water drop looked pretty darn sharp. Holding my camera still was the toughest part. The slightest movement will take your water drop out of focus and you end up with a worthless photo.

Several of my macro water drop photos I took outside on a little twig. The water drop clung to the twig really well and I could move it around to get the correct image inside the water droplet. When I was outside I had my F-stop at 10 and my ISO at 800. The sun was overcast so I didn’t have a lot of natural light. With my indoor still life drops I had auxiliary lighting so I was able to put my F-stop up to 22 and was able to get my flowers all in focus.

For a critique, I consulted my good buddy, Derek Hinds. He is a fellow photographer and was eager to see my images. He was really great at pointing out where the focal points were and why it was in certain places. Derek was also extremely helpful in teaching me more about my getting a better focus out of my camera. My mind was blown at the simple things I had never realized before! Macro water drop photography is something else!

My good friend Megan Kelly is a pro at capturing sparkling water drops!