Synchronicity - a bit of fun

[armando_m]

Made my own controller to shoot water drops using an Arduino NodeMcu microcontroller, this little things are fun and dirt cheap.
 
A bit of  the technicalities ...
 
The controller connected to an electric valve and to the 10pin connector on the D800
 
The node mcu gets power from a 5 volts power supply via a mini USB connector
The electric valve works with 12 V Dc and 300ma, I used an old lap top battery charger, which provides 19V, added a resistor to limit the current to the proper value, the connection from the arduino to the valve needs a transistor, a resistance to drive teh transistor, and a diode across the solenoid pins  to protect from the transient current.
 
The D800 connection is to the awake and shoot pins, using a diode connected directly to one of the digital outputs, all the D800 needs is to have those pins grounded.
 
I wrote a short program to control:
the size of the drops by varying the amount of time the valve opens
the number of drops
the wait time between drops
the wait time to shoot the camera
 
The node mcu comes with a wifi connection and the arduino can be set as a wifi access point and then act as a web server - this allowed to have a web page to control the variables from a remote connected browser, in this case my mobile phone
 
I had a lot of fun, my kids helped in the process from writing the html ( which I hate) to calculate the time in which the drop will hit the water, fix the water container , hold something on the water while I focused the camera, and cleaned up when the mess was to much
 
I used a remote SB700 flash triggered by the on camera D800 flash, the SB700 was inside a translucent container to help diffuse the light
 
Water is on a glass container over a red tray
 
The resulting images are still so so compared to what others are achieving with similar setups, it is now a matter of getting creative with colors and different fluids
 
Thanks for looking and reading

[Akira]

I was immediately attracted to them when I saw them on Facebook for the first time. 

For some reason, I feel something in common with your "jumping dancer" images posted here some time ago.

[David H. Hartman]

Very nice series. A bit different from many. The tight crop helps. The color and contrast is great.

Thank you for posting.

Dave

[armando_m]

Thanks Akira and Dave

[John Geerts]

An unusual set up, with great results.  The red tray works super !

[Øivind Tøien]

Very cool Armando, and a great learning experience for the kids! Looking forward to more results.

[Mongo]

Mongo always finds this stuff very captivating and very clever - particularly yours. nice stuff.

[armando_m]

Thanks Mongo , Øivind, and John

another look
added a touch of milk to the bottom container
used different lightning, grilled flash to the right a white surface on the left
played with the white balance to the get the blueish tones

[Jakov Minić]

Droplets are always attractive, well done! The third of the red series is my favorite

[armando_m]

Thanks Jakov

[Anirban Halder]

They actually look like "dancers" very cool DOI project.

[MFloyd]

Well done ! Do you have a picture of the set-up ?

[armando_m]

Thanks again for the comments, here are a few more
I lowered the pressure coming into the valve, and the drop become a bit more predictable

water falling on very watery milk


Contact ...





the setup ? here is a photo with the mobile

[Akira]

The last two images are phenomenal!  Well done, Armando!

[armando_m]

The last two images are phenomenal!  Well done, Armando!

Thanks Akira