I have become an expert at getting what I want from my point and shoot camera, and you can too.  One of the things I love to capture is falling water droplets. I’ve been using a Kodak DX7630 Point and Shoot camera, with no manual focus, and have been able to develop some tips that I can share with you.  If you do these things and practice, you will be able to take great photos of falling water droplets, and other water subjects, with your Point and Shoot.

Select the Macro Setting

For beautiful detail of falling droplets, you want to get very close.  The macro setting on your camera enables it to focus well at a closer range.

Use Your Finger as a Focal Point

The main challenge for me was answering the question, “How do I get focus on something that isn’t in the frame yet?”

• Start a drip in the sink
• Hold your finger under the drip, midway between sink & faucet
• Force focus on your finger and hold it
• Take finger out of shot

Turn On The Flash

If you can’t adjust settings like ISO, anything that moves fast will own you if you don’t add more light to the equation.

Without flash:

With flash:

Mentally Time Drips

Make a mental rhythm of it for awhile, and when you’re in the groove of it, depress the shutter button right before you think the drop will be there. Boom! You catch the drop.

You will NOT catch it every time, but it doesn’t matter if you’ve gone digital.  Be patient and keep trying.  Delete the photos that didn’t get what you wanted, keep those that did.  The more you practice, the more you will have of the latter, and the less of the former.

Experiment With This Setup

Try different speeds on the water/drip from the faucet, too! You’ll find that there are endless possibilities with just this one setup, and you may, like me, become addicted to water photography.  You really can take great photos of water drops with your Point and Shoot camera!

To make your water drop photos look even more lovey, check out how to improve them with photo editing.

© Lotus Carroll: All photos in this article are copyrighted; all rights reserved. Unauthorized use is prohibited.