How to do Oil & Water Photography

Oil and water photography is easy to do at home and can be a lot of fun, but for a good picture you must keep in mind that images must be vibrant, colourful and nice and sharp oil circles (Blurred or out of focus shots don't look good for this), also keep the images nice and bright as you don't want to under expose these shots

Equipment for the Oil

Glass Bowl with some water. If the bowl has a logo then add more water so that the is deeper (as a narrow depth of field should hide it)

Stand to raise bowl above the table (You could just use a couple of books)

Colourful Background. I use coloured cards, but anything colourful should work

Syringe, Eyedropper or spoon for dropping the oil (or even the oil bottle if it has a small nozzle)

Camera setup

Set camera on a tripod pointing down towards the bowl + External Trigger (to prevent camera shake)

A Macro lens (I used a 90mm) or extension tubes. You might get away with a zoom, but trickier as you want to get close to the surface of the water

Focus. I float a toothpick on the water and get focused, then switch to manual and remove the toothpick.

Aperture. You need the surface to be sharp, but the background should be blurry as its just there for the colours, also you want to hide any logo on the bowl. (I used 5.6) – Tip: Add more water if needed to increase distance between logo and surface.

ISO. Again, depends on light, I used 200

Set Vibration (& Noise) Reduction: Off (Having this on can impact image quality)

Lighting

Light needs to be directed to the background so that it reflects up through the bowl. A couple of light panels are perfect.

If using flashes then you will need to adjust aperture,iso, speed etc as a fast shutter speed might be too fast for the flash, but the image must remain sharp

Oils

Olive Oil, Cooking Oil, Thick/Thin Oils. Different oils look a little different, so experimentation works.

Mixing the oil and water with a spoon and shooting while it settles can produce a nice effect

Examples