Catching Raindrops

It is a rainy morning here in Winnipeg, the perfect time to try and catch some raindrops.

I set my camera up on my tripod with my 75-300mm lens and attached my remote switch to avoid camera shake. I didn't have to wait long at all for each of the drips to drop. My problem was speed, or the lack-there-of. Even with bumping up my ISO, my lens was just not fast enough to stop the action of the drop in lower light conditions. Well, I guess it could have but the image would have been too dark to see a thing!

I settled on shooting the drop still clinging to the grape leaf and used a speed of 1/80  and also f5.6 for barely adequate exposure. ISO was way up there at 1000. Because I was shooting through a screened window, the noise was not as great an issue as it would have been for just about any other shot. There was enough other stuff going on to mask it. I did add a layer in processing to hide the noise even more and darken the shadows.

Grape Leaf

Our grapevine is out of control. In a few days time with the help of some heavy rains it has grown and reached well beyond its usual borders.

I took advantage of my perspective as I was sitting at my dining table, getting some work done. Though a windy day, this leaf was pretty still, clinging to my window, beautifully backlit by the daylight. I grabbed my camera and took a bunch of shots with my macro lens, wanting to get as much of the detailed pattern in the veining as possible.

Still wanting to add to the image, I brought it into photo shop to add a texture layer, partly for mood and partly to mask my dirty windows!