I'm loving these soap bubble pictures. Yesterday, I used a cumbersome soft box that is about half a meter on each side.Today, I tried a flat panel LED light with a linen bag covering it as a diffuser. The LED panel is about the size of a small book--much easier to work with, and the light can get closer to the bubble.
The diffuser still needs some work. If you look closely, you can see the rows of LED lights and the texture of the bag. I have some other ideas for that, maybe a milk jug.
I had been trying to manually focus on the bubble before shooting, but it is a struggle to get that right before the bubble bursts. I sacrificed a few bubbles to get the focus about right and stopped tinkering with it. I think next time, I am going to put a golf ball in the bubble position, and fix the focus on that.
I experimented with all three corners of the exposure triangle. An f/16 aperture worked well in all cases. I got some good results with high ISO of 3200 and a fast shutter of 1/500. ISO 800 and 1/80 to 1/160 shutter worked well, also. I thought the fast shutter would be good, because the colors in the bubble drift around as the top of the bubble thins. The slower shutter speeds gave more vibrant colors, though. I think ISO 800, f/16, 1/125 shutter is a good spot. That might need to change when I change my light diffuser, though.
Class dismissed.