Okay, so we thought we’d try something a little different this time, spice it up a bit and add a little more creativity than just popping water balloons. This time, we added the element of it impacting on someone’s face. So all in the name of science, I volunteered to be the subject of demise and took one for the team!
We put the camera on a long exposure, about 5 seconds, used a Strike Finder™ Elite and with the sound trigger started snapping away. The sound of the balloon hitting my face would be the catalyst for the instant capture. For the first photo we tried, we threw a balloon and it didn’t explode fast enough (since it was soft and wrapped around slightly). The impact was heard by the sound detector on the Strike Finder Elite but the flash was a little too fast for the shot.
The next time, we got a little more clever and added a sharp object to help the balloon pop a little faster. Don’t try this at home, but I clinched a small eyeglass screwdriver between my teeth and tried again. If you look carefully, you can see it in the picture below.
Since the above picture was a little too slow (the water balloon had collapsed too much), we now had to adjust to get the timing of the flash just right. This was done by moving the sound sensor closer to the source, so we moved it just slightly above my head (about two inches). Then we took another couple of shots.
PERFECT! This was the shot I was looking for! The explosion of the water balloon at the right moment just milliseconds after it hit my face! I know, you’re probably thinking I’m nuts, but I think these photographs are cool!
Don’t get me wrong, it didn’t just take three tries to get these shots, it took about an hour or so and about 25 water balloons. You can see a few of our bloopers below. Sometimes, the balloon didn’t pop and other times it completely missed the screwdriver :-). All in all, it was a fun and successful event!
Technical Details: For these shots, we used the Strike Finder™ Elite and a Canon Speedlite 600EX-RT flash attached via a PC Sync cable. We used the sound sensor that comes with the Elite to trigger the flash. The sensor was placed about 2-3 inches above my head so it would pick up the sound easily. The flash was then placed about 2 feet in front of me to get the right exposure. The speed of the flash was set to 1/128. My Canon 5D Mark III was set on 10 second exposure at f/4 ISO 200.
The Road to Perfection
