Dahlia Drop 2, photo by Harold Davis. View this photograph larger.

It occurred to me to try to solve one of the practical problems I mentioned with extreme macro photography in my garden—waiting for the wind to completely stop so the subject is very still—using the slow flash technique that I wrote about here.

Except that, with these studies of a water drop on my dahlia, I mounted the Nikon SB-R200 flash units on a ring at the end of my lens rather than tripod mouinting them for backlighting. The point here was to stop motion, not provide a translucent effect.

These photos were exposed at roughly .4 of a second and f/36—plus the flash, of course. This works pretty well to stop motion on the surface of the water drops, I think.

Enjoy!

View this photograph larger.