Flying fruit

Nick Layton Photography has added a photo to the pool:

My final day shooting fruit turned out to be a bit of an unmitigated disaster to put it bluntly. However, the task which I had given myself was a tough one. Capture a collection of small fruit being tossed into the air perfectly. Fruit consisted of strawberries, blackberries and raspberries.

Again, the problem that needs solving is velocity of fruit versus shutter and strobe duration. Dial down the strength of the strobe and you can get frozen motion, but not as frozen as I would have liked. This was the only nearly decent shot, as hit and miss as it is.

The other lesson learned is that any fruit or any description does not like being thrown into the air more than twice. Raspberries were the early losers, squished after a short distance to the table, closely followed by strawberries and then blueberries.

What I may have to do is point the lens directly up and place a piece of glass between fruit and camera, because after 20 attempts at throwing this stuff, only one raspberry in focus can be a real downer. The white specs are flour by the way.

4 strobes here. 2 at the back at each corner. Canon 540EZ (1/16th with with cloth cap like diffuser) and Canon 430EX (at 1/8th with trace from back left). Metz 54 MZ 3 to the right front with soft box (1/8th) and Nissan Di886 1/8th from left. Almost directly off camera sensor.