by Mark Seaver
With appropriate appologies to the west coast members suffering through reccord droughts and heat waves, we had over 3 inches of rain on Saturday, with much of it falling between about 3:30 and 4:30 pm. That let me, camera, and raincoats got a work out catching the splashing action in my pond. This is late in the event, when the 3 inches of water flowing rapidly across the yard had over run the pond's raised edges and muddied the water making it very dark. Surprisingly, the lily flowers were still nicely open for an important splash of color...sorry couldn't resist. 
Because of the high iso, I applied heavy noise reduction during raw processing. (5D3, 180mm macro, 1/250s, f/10, iso 3200, tripod)
Comments
15 commentsRain? What is rain? Yeah, it sure has been dry out here in the west. A good 18 inch drenching would be a decent start.
Nice image. Beautiful lily and cool to see the drops. I have never shot at an ISO anywhere near 3200. I will have to try it sometime and see what the file looks like.
I did this last week when it was pouring down.. no lily flowers though, so boring was the theme that rainy day
The colors & exposure look excellent, great comp & interest with this rain drop action going on!
Pretty cool Mark. We sure could use the rain here too. I like how this image comes alive with the bouncing raindrops. The splash of color is perfect. iso 3200 would not do well with the 5d2.
Wow. Really nice use of the conditions Mark
Mark, You really took advantage here of the conditions and made a very cool image. You sure captured the feel of a rainy wet day and it worked great. I like your comp, wonderful color in the lily and love the drops coming down. Nice work! I have never tried my 5D3 at 3200 that I recall.
Nick Bristol Lone Rock, WI
Mark, you've really got these scenes dialed in. It's great to see you really working and or experimenting with various approaches. The results speak for themselves.
The composition with corresponding lilies really helps showcase the singular flower nicely. And of course, the raindrops and splashes just add to the viewing pleasure. Very nice.
Really nice creative capture Mark. The color and composition are great and the freeze frame droplets really add interest - I'd be interested to see a larger print to see how the droplets look bigger. The focus is also spot on with a nice blur behind the lily (I assume that was focus blur?). I'm hoping for much more snow this winter myself (Utah), but that's another story ... :)
Mark,
Very nice and we sure did get some rain on Saturday. I like all the textures in the water. Thanks for sharing this beauty
The public areas of many Hawaiian Hotels are repleat with such tight scenes though I haven't done one with the rain. Great idea and amazed at how many of the drops are rebounding almost simultaneously. The choice of a high ISO/shutter speed was a good one. Wonder how a flash setup (umm in the rain?) would bring the water stop action to the fore!
Regards: Tom
Comp is nice with the off center flower bing the focus. This feels a bit straight-out-of-camera to me and missing the artistic flair you usually bring to these scenes.
Beautiful, I like this pink flower over the bouncing water and the green all around. The flower seems to be the light of the scene. Very nice composition and as said it's a very nice used of the conditions.
Hopefully you didn't get soaked in the process. I think I prefer your earlier posts back in April a bit more. I think it was the abstract nature of the rings of water that did it for me.
Your processing is very nice, the ISO is not noticable at all and you did well freezing the drops. Not easy to do..... I might be tempted to saturate the flower a bit more.
I've really enjoyed the shots from your pond Mark; the flower adds a nice touch to this one.
Hi Mark,
I like the balance and framing of Lilly Pads, and they frame up the flower beautifully. The heavy ISO seemed to work out for you too, and I do not notice any image quality in the larger version. I too kind of like the earlier images because of an more artistic quality to them. This image is nice, but your other stuff really moved me Mark.