Ode to water...Part 1

Hello all,

This one took much longer and was harder than I thought it would be.  I wanted to freeze a water drop. 
I messed around with trying to learn how to capture these shots over a course of a week.  My initial results were horrible...blur...out of focus... under exposed... just a mess. 

I quickly learned that to capture these shots was more about lighting than anything else.  I attempted several methods these included:

1. Light from several light stands only.  No flash.  It turned out to be very difficult to get enough light from even several light stands.  Most of the images I captured with this method were very under exposed. 
2. Light from a speedlight (external flash) triggered remotely by my camera.  This method limited my shutter speed to the flash sync speed of 1/200sec. 
3. Light from a speedlight (external flash) triggered by hand using a longer exposure time in a low light room.  In this methond the flash duration freezes the action.

The best photos I captured thus far are from using Method 2.  I found that although my flash sync speed was 1/200sec, the flash duration was key.  The lower the flash power/intensity, the quicker/faster the flash burst, the better the image and frozen action.   

Method 3 showed lots of promise, and I will try using that method again in the future.  It seems to have a lot of potential. 

I am not completely satisfied with these photos, I feel I could do better.  The light source can be clearly seen in most of these photos which distracts from the splash event in my opinion.  They are still pretty cool.  Oh, I did use some flash gels (color transparencies) to give the image some color.  I also used blue food coloring to water to make it stand out more. 

I will definitely attempt to capture this event again in the future. 

The 1st image looks almost alive. 

General setup:
Len used: 55 to 200mm
f/8
1/160 to 1/200 second
ISO 200
Speedlight used with remote trigger.

AP