Working on some jewelry shots with splashes. Started with pearls in a water tank. An inch of water in a custom-built tank – walls are roughly 12″ high, sandblasted on three of the four walls to reduce reflections and light bouncing in the tank. Fourth side is clear to shoot through. Bottom of tank is also sandblasted.

Here’s the empty tank

And a shot with the pearls splashing in the tank

We took over a hundred shots of the pearls splashing through the tank to get just the right look. The pearls had to have a nice flow to them, and the *tip* of the pearl clasp needed to appear as though it was surfing across the water.

Next, we’ll composite the shot without any pearls with the splash shots to create the final version.

Here’s the plan view of the setup

Strobes are broncolor Pulso-G connected to broncolor Grafit packs, with a flash duration set to roughly 1/4,000th of a second per head to freeze the water in motion. Camera is a Hasselblad H3DII-39MS with a 35mm lens. We use a Pocket Wizard to trigger the camera – easier to watch the pearls fall and release the shutter by pressing on the small hand held Pocket Wizard button than fumbling around with the button on the camera.

And here is the final composite: