Sunday – January 15, 2012

Posted by Dave Updegraff on January 15, 2012
Posted in: Uncategorized.
A pair of dice in water

Nikon D700 | Nikon 24 - 70 mm f2.8 lens SB800 SL | ISO 200 1/125 sec @ f22

It is hard to believe that we are already half done with January.  A few weeks ago I saw (on one of the blogs I follow) an idea of dropping a die in a container of water and capturing it as it hit the water.

I figured if they can do it with one die I would use two dice for twice the action. 🙂 It took me about an hour to get everything set up.  I am not going to say I captured the image I had in my head but after looking at these images I’m okay with them.

A pair of dice

Nikon D700 | Nikon 24 - 70 mm f2.8 lens SB800 SL | ISO 200 1/125 sec @ f22

I set up two foam-core sheets on the kitchen breakfast bar.  Then took a container that I bought at Wally World for $4.00 just for this project.  I set up one SB800 speed light with a modified beauty dish diffuser over the top of the container.

I set up a gold diffuser behind the container and lit that with another SB800 speed light.  I used sparkling water in the container (big mistake was to add regular tap water to increase the water level.)

Set the D700 on a tripod and put waterproof material on top to protect the camera and lens.  Then I dropped the dice while pressing the cable release for the shutter.  I missed the first shot but then being the super brain that I am I stuck my hand into the container to recover the dice and of course that pushed half of the liquid out over the foam-core and everywhere else.  Duh!! 😦

Pair of dice

Nikon D700 | Nikon 24 - 70 mm f2.8 lens SB800 SL | ISO 200 1/125 sec @ f22

Anyway I like this image the best.  It’s like anything else.  Experience is the best teacher and there are a lot of things I would now do differently but it took another hour to put everything away so three hours for three images.  I don’t know how soon I’ll try this again.  🙂

I’m going to take my long lens out today and see if the factory recalibration made any difference.  My friend Burt from LeClaire gave me some shooting tips (he has the same lens) on how to get the best results with this lens so I’ll practice with it today.

Thanks for stopping by.  Enjoy your Sunday and be careful.