Creative Indoor Photography, Water Droplet Abstracts

1. Lets Get Started: Hey everyone, For this creative indoor photography class, we are going to be concentrating on water droplet abstracts. These are so much fun. You, what are you going to learn here? You are going to learn about all of the equipment that is needed for this class, as well as how to use it. And we're going to show you how to set up for success doing multiple examples of methods that you can use and different materials that you can use for your subject. I'm going to show you how to avoid mistakes that your bubble photos or your water droplet photos end up absolutely awesome. And I'm going to show you a little bit about how to process these images to bring out their best and maybe some creative color adjustments that you can do as well. So let's go have some fun. 2. Tools For Success: Okay, which you're going to want to get is some brain x, real Rain X the original stuff. You do not want this two-in-one glass cleaner because you're not gonna be happy with the way that the bubbles form there'll be modeled instead of nice and round. You're going to want a nice piece of glass, not plastic. Something like eight by ten is plenty. And you're going to want to protect your hands by putting some sort of Painter's tape or masking tape or something like that around the edges. Just be really safe. Going to want a very simple spray bottle. It's a good idea to have a small water dropper, something like two to 10 mm is plenty. You don't want something that's too, too big and you can use it not only to put drops on, but to actually remove drops as well. You're going to want something to suspend the glass so you can leave an area underneath to place your subjects. A pile of books, some boxes, whatever it is that you use to raise the glass up, it has to be level and it has to be reliable. You're going to want a colorful subject to place under the glass of vase of very vibrant flowers is probably the most fun. You're going to. Maybe something like with familiar patterns like a flag. You can experiment with marbles, kids, toys, pick-up sticks, your favorite photos on a print or even on a tablet. You can put a tablet underneath the glass and just show that. I've even found some of these scarves online that are very colorful and I've used those as well. You need some sort of strong light source. So a window light or some sort of handheld light, panel lights, whatever you might have on hand. You're definitely going to need a tripod or some other method to suspend the camera above the glass. It's gotta be sturdy. It's gotta be trustworthy. You don't want this thing tipping over. And you definitely do not want your camera hitting the glass and breaking it and causing a real problem. And of course, you're going to need a clean cloth for your rain x. So here's a little summary. You want rain x, tripod, glass, cloth, spray bottle, flowers or other colorful subject. A strong light source like a window or artificial lighting. And some patients, this does take time. There will be some trial and error. You may want to treat different sections of the glass and only concentrate on one small section at a time if you're finding that the bubbles aren't forming correctly, treat another section of the glass and try again over there. Clean the glass, spray it again, treated again, do whatever it is that you need to do. There is a little bit of trial and error here, but the end results are so worth it. It is so much fun. 3. The Process: Okay, so you're gonna get your rain x your towel, Andrew glass. And you are going to treat the glass according to the directions. So these circular motions really helped kinda spread it evenly. And then you're going to spray your glass. Fairly self-explanatory. But if you didn't treat the glass properly, you're going to end up with kinda flat, jagged edge bubbles. And you really want your bubbles to be very well-formed. They'll just look so much better that way and the whole process will work better. So here is one of my setups. You can see that I have just used petals instead of a full vase of flowers. And you can get away with this if you're quick. You can do this before the flowers wilt. I've got black on either side. I've got the glass suspended nice and level. And I am shooting straight down. Now I've got black on either side of this because these bubbles are going to pick up reflections from the surrounding area and that includes everything that is beyond where just the flowers are. So just be wary of things kinda creeping in and interfering with your reflections. Now a zoom lens and gravity are going to equal what is called Lens drift. If you aim your camera down and you've got a relatively heavy zoom lens, the lens itself could start to zoom just because of gravity. So I use this thing called a lens band. It's super cheap. You can get it at any online camera store. You can use some heavy duty rubber bands if you've got heavy-duty rubber bands, but I bought the brand name thing. But when you put it over the zoom ring, you can't move it anymore. And that helps prevent it from rotating automatically on its own when you have it suspended directly over your subject. Okay, so let's talk a minute about actual macro lenses. What you might, hopefully you have on hand or something inexpensive that you can pick up that will help you get better images. Here on the left here we have a fixed focal length Mac or macro lens. And that is going to give you your sharpest images. And they can vary in price from third-party lenses like sigma or tamarin or something like that in the three to $400 range. And they can go up to two grand depending on on the quality and the maximum aperture and things like that. Then we have Zoom macros so you can get a zoom lens that they call it zoom with the macro option. Typically one less lens to carry. So you can have your zoom lens with you and your macro lens with you. It tends to be a little softer than a fixed lens, but I'm finding these to get better and better as the years go by. And I think that that's a good option if you just want to have a nice zoom lens that has the option to turn it into a macro. And that basically just means that the minimum focus distance of that particular zoom lens is pretty short so you can get physically close to your subject. This is actually something that I use quite frequently. And it's what you will see in the setup. You may have seen it already on my lens. I use a diopter or a close-up lens. And it's just, it's basically just a filter. It's a glass filter that you attach to whatever lens that you happen to be using. So I was shooting there with a 24 to 240 zoom lens for my Sony. And I just have a 77 millimeter, but that one I have a 72 millimeter pro master brand, a close-up lens. And while it's not a true one-to-one hundred percent macro ratio. What it does is it, it shortens the minimum focus instance of that lens so that I can physically get much closer. And so you saw in the previous video, there are previous portion of this video. How close that lenses to the glass. It's only a few inches, maybe a foot away from the glass. If I didn't have the diopter on that, I wouldn't be able to focus on those bubbles because that lens would be too close to my subjects. So that's all what this thing does. This is basically a magnifying glass. So you don't lose any light with these, which is really nice. Like some other filters, polarizers and things like that, you will, you'll lose light. But this is not one of those types of filters. So those are some options for you. Or you could just use whatever zoom lens you happen to have and try and make the best of it that way. The only problem that you may face is that you may have to put that in zoom lens pretty far away from your glass in order to be able to focus on it. So if you find yourself struggling with focusing and just not being able to do it, you may have to physically backup. If you do use one of these diopters, which I highly recommend I carry this in the field with me all the time so that I can kinda do macro on the go. These are a little finicky and that you actually have to be close to your subject in order for it to focus. Otherwise it just won't do it. If you're too far away. It doesn't act like a normal focus or a normal, normal zoom lens and you won't be able to focus, you have to physically get close to your subject. So I hope that helps in the choice for which lens that you might want to use for this, to get the best results, I have used both a fixed focal length macro lens. That's my Sigma that I used to use on my Nikon, but I'll have my Nikon anymore. And so this time I set it up with a diopter. I got equally good results with both. Okay, you can see here where I'm using the dropper to decrease the size of one of the bubbles. But you can kinda see what happens right there. If I try and put the bubble back a little bit smaller, I've left a little empty space around it. So just watch out for stuff like that if you're trying to adjust the bubbles individually. So let's talk about lighting. So here I'm using just a little handheld light source. So if I hold it up above the bubbles, you can actually see here where I rotate the light around. How it's affecting not only the flowers beneath, but the little almost catch light that's in the bubble itself. So just keep in mind the position of your light. You can actually see how I'm adjusting the shadows, where the shadows from the flowers are going against the other petals that are there. How am effecting where the little catch light is by moving my light around. This is one of those kind of advantages of using a handheld or a portable light source is that you can really affect where that light is landing, not only on your subject, Over up on top of the bubbles itself where that catch light is forming. So if you're using window light, you'll get a lovely reflection of your window in all of these bubbles. And early on that's what I did for the original couple of times that I've tried this as I just shot very close to an open window on a bright day without the light coming directly through the window. But just kind of making it a very, very bright environment which will obviously help with your ISO and your shutter speed and things like that. You can see here I'm actually shooting at F8. And that is so that I can get enough depth of field within the reflection of within the bubble, as well as just a little bit of detail in the background and you can mess with that. Go ahead and alter your aperture, your ISO, and your shutter speed. For whatever shooting scenario your, your numbers are going to be different than mine based on your lighting conditions, based on your distance from your lens to the bubbles, based on the distance between the glass and the subject. If the subject is super close to the glass, everything is going to be in too sharp focus. You might want to the glass a little bit higher or a little bit further away from your subject. So this comes with some experimentation. And that's why in the other video there I talked about having patients with this. So you may want to have a backup plan as far as the height of your glass. Haven't had an extra couple of books if you're piling it up on suspending it with books on, have them on hand so that you can adjust the height of the glass in relation to your subject if things are too in focus or not in focus, enough, things like that. So be prepared to play. 4. Focusing: Okay, Let's talk for a minute about processing some of these images. Now, I'm noticing in here, how much is in focus within this water droplet between this one and this one. Here. I put my focus point right along the very edge of this water. Okay, Now I was just playing around this is this glass actually wasn't treated very well. That's why these water bubbles are pretty flat. But I wanted to make sure that wherever my focus was that it was accurate. So one thing that I want to look out for when I am focusing and I focus manually all the time with this because you really do have to be precise between the focusing and your choice of aperture, because how much depth of field you choose is going to make or break whether most of the reflection within the water droplet is in focus or not. And so I focused on the very edge in this one. On this one, I focused more on the stripe within the medulla. So both of these images were taken at F8. So if I want this stripe in focus and the edge in-focus F8 is not enough. And you can especially see when I get to some of the other droplets here, that again, the reflection or the image that you see within the bubble itself is in focus, but the edge of that water droplet is not. Here again as well. So it's nice to see all of this and focus, but if that edge is not, it doesn't really work as well. So here I switched out the little, I was just using those scarves that I showed you in the the tools video. And here I'm at about f 11. It's a little bit better. The edges nice and sharp, but I still can't tell what my subject is. The subject is too blurry, whether it's in the water droplet itself or in the background is too blurry. So when I switched to F 18, now I can tell within the water droplet itself what is here behind it. So I definitely want all of this in relatively, reasonably sharp focus. If I wanted this in the background to be blurrier, it would probably be better for me to change the distance between the glass and the background rather than choose a different aperture. Because if I shop is again at F117, it's just not in-focus enough. So you're going to have to play with these apertures and the distance between the glass and the background depending on the lens that you're using. Now, when I did this with my macro lens, so this one right here was shot with that diopter attached to a zoom lens. When I did this, several years ago, I used my dedicated macro lens. It was a 50 millimeter macro and that thing went up to like F32. So the minimum focus distance was about an inch. So I can get very, very close to my subject. So it was a little bit easier for me then, I think to get all of the water droplet in focus while maintaining a nice out-of-focus background. So whichever lens you're using, whether it's a fixed focal length macro, a Zoom macro or a zoom lens or a zoom lens with a diopter. You're going to have to play with these numbers a little bit. Play with the numbers, play with the distance to get something really good. 5. Image Results and Processing: Okay, So here's a few images where I just wanted to point out a few things. So I'm at one-eighth of a second, I'm at about 69 mm on my 24 to 40 ISO 4,000, I picked a really high ISO because it gave me more flexibility with my aperture and shutter speed and I can always deal with noise later. It's not that big a deal and it's not even really that bad. So something else I wanted to point out here, specifically with the water droplets, not necessarily in the middle, but the ones along the edges. So you can see here that I'm actually seeing the scarf that was underneath the flower petals. So I put these flower petals on top of a scarf and you can see it plain as day right here. So if I go over to the other side, I'm going to see the other side of that scarf. Though you saw me use just a bunch of petals laying in front of me and they did fill the frame because you can see it here. If you look in the background, the petal is completely filled the frame. I am still getting information in these water droplets that is beyond what my actual photo frame is looking at here. So that's just because they're curving, they're bending, their capturing other things around the sides. So if you want this to be very simple, make sure that whatever you have underneath your flowers, if it's just a flower vase, makes sure that something black or white or a neutral color is underneath your vase. So that if you happen to look through a couple of flowers or you see the surrounding area around the flowers, you're going to see that kinda neutral color. Just make sure that it's not a t-shirt or something that would be otherwise distracting. So here, when I scroll through these, you can see how I moved the life. So you can see the little handheld light right here. It makes for a nice little catch light right there. It's actually really cute. But where do I want it? Do I want it right here in front of my main petals? Maybe not. Maybe I should hold it off to the side, but then I'm holding it off to one side, which is great. But the opposite side is getting a rather large, especially when we get closer to the edge here, a rather large hotspot or white spot right here. So let's see, look at it right there. So that takes up a major portion of that water droplet and I don't want it to look like that. So I'm going to adjust it. So here the light source was up above the glass. When I went below the glass, I got a very different look. And again, this is one of those reasons why I like the little handheld lights because I can really change very dramatically the way that this same scene looks by the position of the light source. So have fun with that. I shifted around and got some different shadows and found an area that was a little bit more neutral. And then I brought in, I went back outside and pick some more petals off of another hanging plant. I didn't tell my husband about it. See me doing this. But yeah, I was picking off petals off of these really pretty flower plants and just placing them here because I wanted a little extra color. So here I've got two shades of pink and white, and now I've added a splash of yellow in here as well. When I get along the edge here, I can see again that kind of floral scarf that I have behind it, which I actually think makes for a nice filler for the space here. So you can use something that's complimentary. If you've got something that's floral that you can just fill in that space right here. Or again, something that's neutral, that's not going to be too much of a distraction. But here I am playing with the light again. So you can see this is the light underneath the glass where it produces some heavier shadows. And then the light up above the glass where it's definitely causing a little catch lights. So this is where personal preference comes in. Just however you are lighting it. I move things around a little bit and I repositioned this flower, which I actually find quite bright. And you can see on the histogram here there's a lot of red going on and it might be a little bit overpowering. And we can deal with that and post these images. Because we've taken the time to adjust the lighting and the colors and they really don't need a lot of actual processing. So the thing that I might be concerned with here potentially could be the noise. You could take it through the new de-noise operation. And I've done that to a couple of these. I don't see on these particular images, I don't see a huge difference. So I'm just going to go ahead and do a little luminance. And to be honest, That's all it really needs. So let's take the dehaze to kinda just beef this up a little bit. I'm going to be a little wary about what that's doing to the, the red and the magenta there because it is making it a little overly saturated. I might come down to HSL. Now here's where you can actually have some fun. So if you didn't quite get the colors of the flowers that you wanted, you can come in here and adjust that. I'm going to take the hue and maybe let's see what's read. So those are all where our reds are. So we can make our reds a little bit more orange or a little bit more deeper magenta. What do we have for orange? Not a lot. I keep that neutral. We probably have a good bit of magenta and purple. So if I want that to be more red, I can, or more on the pink side and purple. We've got a good deal of purple here. So we can make it a little bit more blue or a little bit more pink. Whatever you want. I might take the luminance of the magenta and bring it down just a little bit. Don't make adjustments to, to drastically here because we end up with not very smooth transitions between one or the other here at 11 color and the other. It just doesn't look quite normal. So if you want to tone it down, tone it down a little bit right there. And maybe the red too. It's just a little Timmy's just a little overpowering. I might Brighton yellow a little bit. There we go. Excellent. So let's see before and after. That's just got a little bit, a little bit more pop and that's really all it needs. Like I said, these do not need a lot of editing. Now, if I wanted to target a particular color more so than in the HSL, I could try a mask and click on the range, color range, and then I'm going to pick a color. So we'll pick that one. And I'm gonna change my mask color because I can't quite tell what I'm looking at here. Because I'm working with red on red. Okay, so there's the mask and we could warm that up or cool that down if we wanted it more. Purple. You see how that happened right there. Show that again. So warming that up, cooling it down and making it less, a little less pink, a little bit more purpley. We could bring some green are some more purple into it just depending on what you wanna do. So that's another thing that you can do within Lightroom, which is kinda nice. I used to have to take it into Photoshop to do something like that. But now I can do that in Lightroom, which is nice. So that's the overlay. So not only is it targeting this whole area right in here, it's targeting that flower. In every single one of these reflections, we're just looking at the overlay here. I clicked on Show overlay so I can see where it's making the adjustment. And I turn that off and we're back to the pink. That's it. Just some basic adjustments to enhance these images. Again, if you're using a really high ISO, definitely do a little bit of noise control in here to enhance them and clean them up a little bit. But that's really all you need to do to these photos. They are just fun to, to capture and the results are really cool all by themselves. No Photoshop necessary. 6. Your Project: Okay, for your project, you are going to treat your glass with the Rain X gets your equipment all setup, makes sure that lens is nice and perpendicular to the surface of your glass, that everything's level. Go ahead and use your macro or your diopter or just your zoom lens, whatever it is that you happen to have. And be sure to adjust your lighting to taste. Pay attention to where those reflections and that spotlight is or that little catch light is going on. And most of all, have fun. And I look forward to seeing all of your results. 7. Final Thoughts: Hey everyone, I hope you enjoyed this class. You learned something new, and I hope you're prepared with all of the tips and tools to make sure that your water droplet images are a huge success. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me on this platform or on my website. And I hope you have fun. And I really just cannot wait to see what you guys create. Phoenix time.