In my last post, I showed a close up picture that was taken with available light and a long exposure time (25 seconds). Today’s picture required just the opposite- supplementary lighting and a very short exposure time.

This picture captures the splash of a cherry – for a picture like this, timing is everything, so don’t be afraid to take a lot of pictures in order to get the one that works. A tripod and flash is required and a shutter release (a cable with a button to click the shutter button away from the camera) is highly recommended. As you can imagine, a very short exposure is required – this was taken for 1/250 second at f/10 (ISO 200). The flash is also important to light the scene and get the highlights in the drops of water.

I set the shot up with a white poster board behind the wine glass, with the glass about a third full with water. I dropped the cherry from about a foot above the glass, pressing the shutter button (on the shutter release) as the cherry fell. I took numerous shots to get the one with the cherry just hitting the water and the splash exploding out of the glass.

The only post-processing I did for this shot was the vignetting in the corners of the picture – the dark corners draw the viewer’s eyes into the center of the photo, and ensure their focus on the cherry and the splash.