Yesterday I worked some more with the StopShot device for taking high-speed photographs. I now feel as if I finally got the various components properly arranged and working together well–the StopShot itself, the Yongnuo YN560 flash, the water tray, the background elements, and the placing and focusing of the Leica D-Lux 6 camera.

With this setup, I was able to capture a chronological series of images of two water drops colliding to form interesting splash patterns. For the background, as described in an earlier post, I placed two sheets of construction paper, one red and one blue, behind the water tray and aimed the Yongnuo flash at the colored paper so the light of the flash would bounce onto the water as the drops splashed into the tray. This time, I got the manual focusing more exact than before and got the timing figured out so I could capture a series of images showing how the drops fall.

The series does not show the same drops falling; each image is of a new set of drops, but taken at a different stage in the process, a few milliseconds later each time. In the gallery below, the first two images show the setup. In the second image, you can see the Yongnuo flash at the left side, aimed at the red and blue sheets of paper.

Then, in the remaining shots, you can see images of the drops before they collide, followed by views of later stages of the collisions.