How-To: Water Drops

Photography is basically my biggest passion in life. For days now I've just been aching to shoot. But being sick and couch ridden for a week or so I haven't really been up for much more than movies and soup. Thankfully today I feel better and was able to actually get off the couch. So today I finally busted out my camera and set up some of my favorite in home shots.
Water is such an amazing thing to shoot.. You can do slow shutter speeds on flowing water to create a smooth silky effect. And you can do fast shutter speeds to freeze the image and capture splash.
(find out more about shutter speed here)
Today, being inside, I went with a fast shutter speed and photographed some water dripping into water.
Here is my easy in home set up for photographing water drops:
(This is an amazingly easy set up. Everything I used I found around the house. And I actually set it up in my bedroom.)
Things you'll need:
Shallow dish (I used a 9x9 glass baking dish lined with tin foil)
Small ziplock bag (with a pin size hole in the middle on the bottom to allow water to drop out one drop at a time)
4-6 lights
Tripod (I used two, one for my camera, and the other to hold up my bag of water)

I put my tripod on the table. Placed my dish of water below it. Clamped my bag of water to the tripod above my dish of water. And set up about five lights behind my set up.
I attached my 18-55mm lens to my camera, put it on the tripod, attached my timer remote, and turned my dial to M.
I used the following settings:
Shutter speed - 1/1600
Aperture - 7.1
ISO - 400
Flash on
Autofocus OFF

It can be very hard to focus on the water as its dripping past the lens. So to help focus I use a pen and put the tip in the water exactly where the water is dripping.
Now that you're all set up its time to snap some shots. Timing can be tricky. Too early and you catch the drop before it hits the water. Too late and you only get the ripple after. So just play with your timing until you get the shot just right. (I used my time remote to prevent any slight shake)

Here are a few shots I took today:
(I adjusted brightness/contrast and hue/saturation to bring out some detail and enhance the drops more)