Friday, September 3, 2010

Water Drop Black & White Photography

It was a horrible rainy week and feeling a little bit sick so there was no way I would risk to go out for any photo hunting session to get even more sick so I stayed home enjoying the warmth of my lemon tea. Wondering what to post I stared out my balcony window and saw a twig with a couple of water drops dripping slowly from it. It was around 3pm in the afternoon so there was still day light, well...whats much of it anyway but the water drops seem to reflect the day light and made it brighter. I don't know how the water did it but I can explain how I took this photo.
Knowing that I was going to take a very close shot I used a tripod to avoid hand shake. I thought about taking the shot the way it was with the day light but I knew I was just going to get a grey photo with unwanted detail of the apartment across my building with their hanged laundry blurred as a background. I did not want to miss out this opportunity though cause the twig and the water drops just looks beautiful so I decided to make the surrounding and whatever background details out of my focal length reach pure black. By doing so I set my shutter speed to 1/50, Aperture F4.5, Mode Exposures +4.7. This setting is already almost automatic for me whenever I find myself in these kind of situations. It never fails me. It never fails because with a fast speed, open aperture and high exposure the unwanted detail without enough light will become dark or black and the concentrated object within your focal length's reach has enough light to show the details of your object which is what the aperture does and the white details of the twig and water becomes brighter because of your high exposure setting. That setting is my most reliable setting and if the circumstances differ slightly I only need to adjust the setting a notch up or down.
Because I was using my Nikon D70, this photo is originally in color. If you would like to convert your color photos to black and white, click here: how to best convert your color photo to black and white.
I hope no bad weather or health condition stops you from picking up your camera and start snapping. I wish for a good health for all us.

5 comments:

  1. Very nice picture, thank you for sharing your experiences. I will surely try it myself once :)

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  2. Excellent photos, wery nice blog.
    Thanks!

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  3. Elektra & Canvas Picture,

    Thanks for the visit and comments. So happy you both like it.

    Rendy Loudewijk

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  4. I am so bad with all the technicalities of photography, it's so great that you've got it all down properly, it makes such a difference - this is a great shot.

    Ellen at The Raven and the Cellar Door

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  5. Thanks for the heads up. This really helped me.. Although I don't have manual settings on my camera, but I could infer the lightning and exposure settings, thanks to you.. :)

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