Oil and water photography

This blog post will be very simple. I have learned a trick to take pictures of oil and water that I will explain below. I learned this from an excellent book on photography, Understanding exposure, by Bryan Peterson. Some examples are below:

What you will need:

• two cups
• a glass bread pan
• water
• cooking oil
• a colorful piece of cloth
• a long lens with macro extension tube, or macro lens
• a tripod
• patience

Place the grass bread pan atop the the two cups, fill with water up to 2/3, and drop a few drops of cooking oil on the water. Then focus on the colorful bubbles that form and watch on the view finder until a patter forms that you like. Fire away. Make sure to use either a remote shutter release or the timing on your camera so your photos won't get blurred.

You will have to figure out the right exposure, but the picture in the book (page 73) was taken at 200mm, f/11, ISO 200, 1/60s

Photo of the basic setup