Oil and Water Photography | Equipment Explained [part 1]

As promised, today's post marks the start of the four-part set explaining why you'll be needing each piece of equiment for the process of taking your oil and water photographs. Today I'll be talking about items 1-3 listed in the shot below, explaining why you'll be needing a tripod, a camera, and some cocktail sticks.

1.Tripod

You definitely NEED a tripod to work within this area of photography, and it's best if it's an incredibly sturdy one that's able to hold your camera perfectly still. You don't want it moving around at all, even if only slightly, as any movement will render the resulting photograph useless, everything needs to be kept perfectly still.

You'll also need to be able to attach the camera so that it's pointing with the lens aimed down towards the ground. The tripod which I use has a 90° central column which can be extended and positioned horizontally so that you can point the camera directly towards the floor without the tripod legs being in shot. (If you can't keep the tripod legs out of shot completely this isn't too much of an issue though as you can crop the image in post-production to remove them from the scene.)

2.Camera

Obviously, you're going to need a camera! It's ideal if it's a DSLR camera but you may be able to get away with using a digital compact camera instead, as long as it's got a macro shooting mode, but I have never tried this method though so i'm not entirely sure if it will work? If anyone does give this a go then please let me know how you get on in the comments below as I'd love to hear about your results!

It's also ideal if you can put your camera into manual mode so that you have more control over the settings as getting the right aperture, shutter speed, etc, is crucial to getting the perfect shot.

3. Cocktail Sticks

It's also very handy to have a couple of cocktail sticks nearby because if you're a fussy perfectionist like I am then you'll want the bubbles to be in just the right place within the shot so they're useful for giving the bubbles a little nudge into the position where you want them to make sure your shot is perfect.

*top secret tip alert* The cocktail stick is also incredibly useful to help you focus your shot. Sometimes it's tricky to get the focus right as it's hard to see the bubbles through the viewfinder so I like to drop the cocktail stick into the water then focus on that instead as it floats just on top of the surface like the bubbles do and so it enables you to get a more accurate focus. The focus ring may need tweaking slightly once you begin shooting the actual oil droplets but it definitely helps to get the camera focused within the right area nonetheless.

I hope that has helped those of you reading this to understand why these items are required to ease the process of shooting oil and water shots. 

Stay tuned to learn about why you need to use a clear glass coffee table, a spirit level, a flashgun and some tissues!

See you then, thanks for reading...