Water Drop Photography
 Electronic Valve
 IR Beam Sensor  Hot Shoe  StopShot Controller |
This picture on the left shows our typical setup for taking water drop photographs. You can see the StopShot module on the bench. The IR Beam Sensor shown is included in the StopShot package. The long tall container above the water valve assembly is a Mariotte siphon. The siphon keeps constant water pressure on the valve regardless of the water level (this will help you get consistent drops). This setup also uses the hot shoe adapter to connect the flash to StopShot, the pc to RCA cable is included. Everything in this setup is held up by a 1/2" black pipe clamp. The sensor is designed to slide over the pipe. These pipe clamps are available at any home improvement store. For this particular setup we are using StopShot to activate an electronic water valve and a flash. When the button is pressed StopShot opens the valve for 50mS causing a drop of water to fall. StopShot then waits for the drop to pass through the sensor, this action triggers the start of a programmable delay (in this case the delay is 255mS). After the delay the StopShot fires the flash which exposes the picture. All of this happens in a darkened room. |
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Drop Collision Pictures Getting two drops to collide is usually a very difficult task. StopShot makes it much easier. With StopShot and the Water Valve Assembly you can program StopShot to release multiple drops with a configurable amount of time between them. The result is some spectacular photo opportunities. |
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One of the questions we get asked most often is: How do I set up my StopShot to capture a water drop collision. In this section we'll go through the settings so you can get a feel for how it is done. A drop collision only last for 4 or 5 thousandths of a second (milliseconds or mS) so your timing needs to be right on to capture it. The settings listed here will vary depending on the physical setup you have but these settings will give you a good point to start. The first thing you need to is get the water valve and IR sensor setup. My setup is shown above for reference. Next StopShot is connected like the diagram shown to the right. Using the camera control is optional but it makes it possible to take high speed photographs without it being completely dark in the room. |
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After you have the physical setup complete it is time to configure StopShot. First we need to change the global mode of StopShot from independent to sequential mode. Making this change will not allow the next channels event to happen until the previous one is complete. Next, we need to set up each individual trigger to do what we want. Below is a list of the different triggers and the settings required for each one. The manual has more details about how to get to each setting.
This is only one method of taking these photos. There are many variations on the theme. Many people let their camera control the flash and just trigger the camera with StopShot. Others, myself included, take the pictures in a dark room and control the camera manually. Experiment and use the method that works best for you. |
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Auto Increment
StopShot can be set up to auto increment the trigger output time. Once you have a setup you are happy with you can have StopShot bump up the trigger time for each picture it takes. If your event is repeatable you can use this mode to capture several pictures of the event at incrementing values of time. An example of this is shown below.
The Results |
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Click images to enlarge. |
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