More Scientific and Technical Photographs

Photographs by Andrew Davidhazy

all images copyrighted but commercial reproduction rights or individual prints may be obtained from the author

More Scientific and Technical Photographs

These are some water drop splash rebound effects.

These photographs of water splashes concentrate on the after effects of the impact of a drop of water on a shallow layer of the same liquid. This is a recoil or rebound effect of the surface responding to the sudden disturbance caused by a drop of water hitting the surface. After the initial "crown" seen in in the early stages after impact, the subsequent recoil column of water rises to surprising elevations above the surface and then due to surface tension effects it breaks up into droplets that fall back into the host liquid under the pull of gravity.

Some of the images were made on film with a Canon A1 with a 135mm f/3.5 Canon FD lens with a 25mm extension tube. The film for B&W images was Kodak T-Max 400 black and white film processed in Rodinal 1:25 for 6 minutes at about 72 degrees F. For the color photographs made on film, the film was Kodak Extachrome and a blue filter was used in front of the lens. For some photographs the lighting was provided by a Braun electronic flash set to automatic but with a piece of paper deflecting light from the flash head towards the photocell in order to quench the flash and thus produce a flash of short duration. For most of the photographs, whether film or digital I used a Sunpack 552 electronic flash powered down to 1/16 or 1/32nd power to keep the exposure time short. This is required to end up with sharp photographs of this high speed event.

The milk splash photographs were made with a Fastax high speed motion picture camera and the 16mm Kodak color reversal film was scanned. Finally, some of the most recent photographs were made with a digital camera. I used a Canon Digital Rebel essentially the same way as used for the images made on film.

The timing was always accomplished by using a home-made dark activated synchronizer that detected the passage of a drop across a light beam from a small lamp directing the beam across the drop path of the water drops. Its delay after detecting the passage of a drop through the light beam could be adjusted to fire the flash at some desired time giving time for the drop to achieve the desired splash features and appearance. Needless to say, the camera shutter was set on "B" and opened just previous to a drop's splash and closed immediately thereafter. NOTE: Second row of rebounds are photo-illustrations with flying drops reshaped or repositioned.

Acknowledgement: Thanks to AM Worthington and "Doc" Edgerton for their pioneering work in this field.

If you would like a photograph made to certain specifications drop me a line and we may be able to work something out.

Object splashing into water glass and causing cavitation


Rebounding glass of water 8490	Rebounding glass of water 8492	Rebounding glass of water 8477	Rebounding glass of water 8488	Rebounding glass of water 8494	Water rebounding out of cup 781


Water splash 8564	Water splash 8604	Water splash 8660	Water splash 8673	Water splash 8722	Water splash 8739


Water splash 8211	Water splash 8176	Water splash 8204	Water splash 8321	Water splash 8444


Dripping water necking 0056	Dripping faucet 0060	Dripping water necking 0048	Dripping faucet 0084	Dripping water necking 0049	Water dripping 0086	Dripping water necking 0065	Dripping water drop 0080	Dripping water necking 0076	Water dripping 0081

Leaky faucet dripping water drops
a sequence of 6 photographs


Water splash #2	Water splash #3	Water splash #4	Water splash #4744	Water splash #4759	Water splash #4761	Water splash #4765


Milk drop splash 01	Milk drop splash 02	Milk drop splash 03	Milk drop splash 04	Milk drop splash 05

Milk drop splash 06	Milk drop splash 07	Milk drop splash 08	Milk drop splash 09


Water drop splash 4726	Water drop splash 4730	Water drop splash 4741	Water drop splash 4744	Water drop impact 4766	Water drop splash 4767	Water drop splash 4776