Last year we had an excellent practical night when our own Ernie Patterson demonstrated some simple yet ingenious trigger mechanisms that fired a flash the instant water was displaced. The resulting images were amazing.
A few weeks ago we ran the night again and Ernie came up with some new triggers, allowing different types of images to be captured.
Here are a couple of photographs taken during the Water night. One shows a cherry tomato as it splashes into a glass of water. The other photograph shows the triggering mechanism used to fire the flash at the moment the tomato hits the water. It is made from two CDs with strips of aluminium tape stuck to them and spaced apart using a small piece of mount board. The size of the piece of the mount board adjusts the pressure required to trigger the device. By sliding the glass containing the water closer or further away from the CDs, the sensitivity of the trigger is adjusted. All that is then required is the additional weight of the tomato hitting the water to close the “switch” and fire the flash.
Camera is set to Bulb mode, f18 and ISO 200.
Very ingenious, thanks Ernie
