Critique FIRST ATTEMPT AT WATER BALLOONS

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jason
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Taken in the back garden, sunny day, black background. Nikon D500, Sigma 50-150mm F2.8 lens mounted on a tripod and remote shutter, continuous high.
I set the focus, F4, 1/4000sec and ISO 200. The shots per second was quite rapid.
Im quite happy with the results but would have loved to get that suspended water orb effect.
Any tips or hints to improve?
_JAY0790 by jason greenwood, on Flickr
_JAY0825 by jason greenwood, on Flickr
 
Rally like the first image, love the sense of movement in the tear. I use highspeed cameras in work and I suspect you will stuggle to capture the orb effect as your shutter speed is not fast enough. Highspeed cameras allow nano second exposure times, Might be worth trying a dark room and a flash, this will give a short effective shutter speed. Other than that lots of trial and error as you wil only get a few frames for each balloon, were as a highspeed camera would give you thousands, but you do have the advantage of having much better resolution and dynamic range.
 
Good effort. If you want to go faster flash is your friend. My cheapo yongnuo speedlites, set at the lowest output value, have a flash duration of around 1/38000th/s, its super easy to setup a dark shot, actually shoot it at around 2sec shutter speed and manually fire the flash when the action happens. It takes some trial and error to get your exposure correct but I've frozen air rifle pellets in mid air with this technique.
 
Like these.

I think you did great with just natural light. Not that I have tried to do this.



@JGP That does sound very impressive.



Gaz
 
You'll do it with flash as has been said - just set it on the lowest power setting to give you the minimum duration. (y)
 
I took this one and used a needle tied onto a stick and got my other half to pierce the balloon directly from below. Timing is key, and someone who is prepared to get wet.
I used natural light 50mm 1:4 @f1:4, ISO 100, 1/6400 in manual mode.
 

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The first one is fantastic
 
Is the balloon inflated with any air, on top of the water or just filled and tied? Also, does it make a difference where the balloon is pierced, and with what? Ive just been filling with water until it felt "stressed". No air was used to blow up. Maybe I need to go faster then 1/4000? I don't have any off camera flash unfortunately. Ive got a good spotlight that might add extra illumination to the balloon.
 
Is the balloon inflated with any air, on top of the water or just filled and tied? Also, does it make a difference where the balloon is pierced, and with what? Ive just been filling with water until it felt "stressed". No air was used to blow up. Maybe I need to go faster then 1/4000? I don't have any off camera flash unfortunately. Ive got a good spotlight that might add extra illumination to the balloon.

I bought ordinary balloons form the supermarket and held them on my outside tap until like you say they wont hold their own weight, tied a knot in the top and suspended mine on garden twine hanging from the guttering on my summerhouse. I found through trial and error that it does depend on where you pierce the balloon as to how the water falls. I used natural light and a tripod with my remote shutter release.
I really like the first picture, I would be happy with that one myself.
 
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The balloon is stretched and wants to spring back to its smallest state. When you pierce the balloon the hole you make will open and spread to the opposite side of the balloon, thanks to the evenly distributed pressure of the water. That is to say, if you pierce at the bottom, the balloon will open up and retract towards the top. The trick is grabbing the photo once the balloon has finished retracting but before the water has started to fall. To add to that, the knife, being a blade, will make a slit and the balloon breaking will follow the split, whereas a pin or round point might be less consistent.
 
I think its just luck,might get a decent one every 10 balloons,I've never used flash on my attempts,just needs to be sunny
 

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