I have been asked on several occasion to explain the technique. While this is nothing new and the technique has been reviewed elsewhere I can give you a general outline of the technique for doing droplet shots. The exact technique and apparatus you use depends on how involved you want to get. My own technique has evolved through multiples stages of sophistication over the past 11/2 years since I started doing this. I started with an eye dropper, a bright sunny day, and everything done manually. My setup has gradually gone through dozens of modifications and is now a bit more complex.

   The beauty of this type of photography is that it provides endless creative possibilities in the confines of your own home. This is very helpful when the days get short and the skies are gloomy.

   First you need a way to release the droplet in a consistent fashion so they strike the same place every time. This allows you to manually pre-focus your camera on the impact point.

     You need to design an apparatus to release the drops. How you do this depends on how involved you want to get. A turkey baster, an eye dropper, a plastic cup with a hole in the bottom, or a syringe with some tubing will all work. If you are triggering the shot manually its best ot have a constant flow of drops so you don' have to release the drop and then try to trigger the camera. The best method I found in the beginning was to build a frame out of household materials -wood, pvc pipe etc, and then clamp a plastic cup to the frame. If you use a tiny pin to poke a small hole in the bottom of the cup you can get small droplets to fall from the cup as a usable interval ( say 1 drop every second or two). Later I got a little fancier using syringes and tubing but that's not necessary if you're just getting started. I now use an electronic valve to release the droplets in a more controlled way. Once you've established your impact point, place an object ( I like to use a large deck screw - the threads provide a good surface to focus on) at the point of impact and pre-focus the camera.

    The trick to getting sharp photos lies not in the speed of the shutter but in the duration of the flash. If you really want sharp droplet photos, you need a good (but not necessarily expensive) external flash. My shots were mostly taken at shutter speeds of 2-3 seconds. I usually set the shot up in my basement where I can get near dark conditions ( and no interruptions). I used to leave enough light so I could see when the droplet was released and then trigger the flash manually. With practice you can get pretty accurate with the timing. Now I use a photogate ( this is an electric eye which senses the droplet passing buy and after an adjustable delay it sends out a pulse to trigger the flash) to trigger the flash. This allows a much higher capture rate. There are several types of equipment available for this depending on how much you want to spend.

   The flash is the key to getting sharp 'frozen' droplets. Flash duration is tied closely to flash power. If you use the flash at maximum power the duration of the flash will be longer. Conversely if you turn the power all the way down you will get a very short flash duration. This type of photography obviously benefits from the shortest flash duration you can achieve. I purchased an old Nikon SB28DX on Ebay for about $100 just for this purpose. When the power is set to minimum the flash duration is about 1/28,000 second. This is much shorter than the 1/4,000 sec shutter speed that most cameras are capable of. In the micro world of droplets that small amount of time can be the difference between an OK photo and one that freezes the action tack sharp.

   Experimentation makes this process so interesting. Colors can be added to the scene by using colored liquids or placing colored objects in or around the water. Different effects are generated depending on the depth of the water, the temperature of the water, the height of the droplet release and many other variables. This is actually the trickiest and most important part of the whole process. You can have a droplet photo that is technically excellent and yet completely boring to look at if the lighting and color do not bring something more to the image. I can't really tell you too much about this for 2 reasons. First because its taken hundreds of hours of experimentation to get the lighting right and I don't want to give too much away. Second because even I can't always repeat the results I have gotten. This is because there are so many variables and sometimes a very small change in just one of them can completely alter the result.

 Some basic principles will help you get a good result though.

• Take the flash off the camera. You need to move the flash around to different heights and angles in relation to the camera and surface of the water. You will find sometimes that even a miniscule adjustment in these parameters can  make a huge difference in the result you get

• Place objects around the water container that will add color to the image. Just as with the flash, where you place the object can make all the difference. I use a glass tray as the water container. You can then place things above, below, and on the sides and see how it affects the photo. Try different things - solid color objects, patterns, flat objects, curved objects. They will all give different results.

   Finally, you may have noticed that many of my more recent photos involve collisions between several droplets. Droplet collisions are the hardest type of droplet shots to do well because you not only have to trigger the shot precisely, but you need to choreograph the collision first. If you practice enough you will get an occasional shot like on the left with manual droplet release and a photogate flash trigger. Maybe one out of every 3-400 will involve a collision if you're good. To get a shot like the one on the right you need to have much more control than what can be accomplished with manual control of droplet release and flash.

    To get them consistently you need an accurate way to control the amount and speed of fluid release as well as the timing of the flash. If you really want to try this type of shot its almost essential to have a photogate and to use some type of electronic device to release the droplets. It can be done manually and I managed a few this way, but you could take a thousand shots and not get one keeper.

                                                 The key is to keep experimenting and have fun.