Having read a post on the Digital Photography School forum on how to create splash crowns I decided to put the technique to the test. I have often admired some of the impressive high speed photography you see from time to time on flickr but really hadn’t any idea actually how hard it is to achieve.

The biggest challenge is timing. Setting the camera to manual I took a few test shots to establish how quick a shutter speed I could get away with. I introduced an external lamp to offer some fill lighting and then relied on the flash to fire when capturing the shot. The big problem was the flash fired for the first two, possibly even three high speed shots with the remaining ending up in the dark.

After the first 40 attempts I achieved one single crown (see it here). A few days later I enlisted an extra pair of hands to help with either the dropping of the milk or controlling the camera. 40 shots later and we had nothing other than a stack of messy cloths and food colour splatter over the floor.

At this point we devised the 1,2,3, technique. Working out the optimum height to achieve a good “crown type shape” without too much mess we then found a natural rhythm to time the shots.  1 indicates we are about to start, 2 indicates a gentle squeeze of the dropper and 3 indicates taking 3-4 photos. It actually was best for the person controlling the camera not to look anywhere near the photographed area and be in charge of the counting.

A further 20 shots and we achieved 3 more crowns. The crowns were not as impressive as those on the DPS forum but an achievement none the less. I can’t see us venturing back to messy milk and food colouring for a few months but it was an enjoyable and challenging experiment.