Cancelled my 1D-X order

[Edwin Herdman]

Definitely the right choice.  The 1D X's new features seem best targeted towards news and some sports photographers who need a durable package that shoots really high quality pictures really quickly.  It just won't be quick enough to get a bunch more usable frames from a droplet collision, where you're basically dependent on having correct timing for one frame (my assumption there).

I think the 1D X would be useful for landscape photographers doing a bunch of multi-exposure HDR shots, except the resolution appears to limit the usable print size somewhat (medium format might be a better choice if that is the case), which is not to say that the IQ won't be a nice bump up from previous cameras, or that alignment issues won't be lessened shooting at 12FPS versus much slower cameras.  Heck, even the mighty quick 7D shoots barely more than 1/2 the speed of the 1D X, and actually half when the 1D X is in 14 fps mode...not bad!

Beyond those probably uninteresting thoughts, I have to say thanks for the awesome sharing on method and images.  I would love to look at the stopshot some more.

[Act444]

In answer to the questions on the drop shot, I used one of these - http://www.cognisys-inc.com/stopshot/stopshot.php

Basically the drop is frozen by the flash, not the camera. I set the Stopshot to drop three drops.  The second drop rises up from colliding with the first drop. The third drop then collides with it as the second drop rises. The drop at the very top was unintended.  You need a high speed trigger like Stopshot to do this as the collision lasts for only about 1 ms.

To obtain the colors I use one food coloring on the water in the pan and a different one on the drop.  I then use a gel to get a third color for the background.  Here the water was yellow and the drop was green and they kind of both morphed together. The blue in the drop is from the geled flash.

In this shot I managed the colors a bit better, but didn't know how to collide the drops at the time.

http://500px.com/photo/4227516

For those interested in what I plan to spend the money on instead, I am still working on a list but the following are the likely choices.

• A few more flashes so I can do some more creative things
• A Stackshot to get into image stacking
• Mitutoyo 10x and 20x objectives so I can move past the 5x magnification of my MP-E 65
• A high speed shutter to enable photographing insects in flight

Nice shot!

[Neeneko]

In answer to the questions on the drop shot, I used one of these - http://www.cognisys-inc.com/stopshot/stopshot.php

Cool, thanks for the details.
I have been playing with the flash technique and have been thinking of investing in an external trigger like this, but so far has only looked into Trigger Trap