Following the most recent addition to my drip play (a straw from one of the fast food places around), which brought some size uniformity, today I moved the camera off of the stable Manfrotto tripod and on to the wobbly plastic tripod I bought on the cheap in 2003 (and cursed at every time I used it to support a camera) and used the fancy swing-out center post to help stabilize my dripping.
I also used a bowl—a red bowl I used for a candy dish at work until I stopped eating candy, and that just languishes in the cabinet most of the time now—to get a deeper pool, even though everything I’ve read about this says shallower water works better.
The new setup worked fairly well, I must say, but I still didn’t get that shot, and the splash-back was quite often well out of frame.
But I got this groovy one instead, so I’m fine with that.
D7000. Vivitar 70-210mm f/3.5 Series 1 (Kiron). ISO400, 1/250th, f/11. SB-700, zoomed to 50mm, at 1/32nd fired behind and slightly towards the pool. Some straightening (the elcheapo tripod is never square, no matter how hard I try) and about a 50% crop in aperture, plus maybe 2 minutes of slider play to sharpen things up and bring out that nice 6-pointed sunstar.
