My amazing wife made the uncharacteristic mistake of asking me what I wanted for my birthday this year. My response was something along the lines of: "I'd love to throw a bucket of water at you!" Remarkably, she agreed! I had just purchased some new lights (Profoto D2s) and was dying to put them to work. I wanted to see if these lights lived up to their billing as the fastest lights in the world.
Happy birthday!
At noon on a sunny summer's day in July, I set up a black backdrop, three lights and a couple of buckets of water outside. Two Profoto D2s with zoom reflectors were placed at 45 degree angles from about 10 feet behind and on either side of the subject. The front was lit with another Profoto D2 mounted with a white beauty dish. I wanted to largely freeze the water mid flight but needed to overpower the noon sun. I ended up shooting the 1000 watt second flashes at about half power at 1/250 and f 7.1. I was able to shoot at 11 frames per second on a Nikon D4S (70mm - 200mm lens racked out to 200mm). I could have played with settings and frozen the water more but this set up seemed to be about the right balance in the conditions I was in. I also could have used high speed sync and shot at a much faster shutter speed but would have had to give up the ability to shoot 11 frames per second (and possibly miss the best expression/moment). It's always a compromise, but these powerful monolights reduce what one needs to compromise to a remarkable degree.
This little experiment led to a wonderful serious of images which can be found at www.blairrobertsonphotography.com/splashingaround.
This wouldn't have been possible without my incredibly adventurous wife - thank you for the fabulous birthday present!