OK as many of you know I'm stuck at home recovering from surgery. To kill the time today I played with one of my Christmas gifts from my wife. She saw this on TV. I used the Triggertrap mobile app on my iPhone to take a high speed shot of a water balloon popping. I know it's cliche but it is a lot of fun. 

Setup

To try and keep the mess contained, I did this in my basement bathroom. I tacked up some black cloth for the background in the tub. I used a PVC pipe to create a crossbeam across the tub to hang the balloon from. I used black shoelace to hang the balloon. 

For the lighting I had one Nikkon SB900 on a light stand camera left. This is the light that was connected to the Triggertrap and my iPhone. I had a Nikkon SB800 on a light stand camera right. This one was in SU mode so that it fires when the other strobe fires. Both were set to 128 power to get the fasted strobe and thus freeze the motion better. 

I had my Nikkon D300s on a tripod in manual focus mode focused on the balloon. It was in bulb mode and I used a cable release to start and stop the bulb mode.

To pop the balloon I made a miniature blow dart out of a drinking straw, some shoelace, a pin, and some black tape. In most of the photos I have seen, the method used to pop the balloon was visible (e.g., a hand with a needle, and dart, a pellet from a BB gun). I wanted mine to be unobtrusive.

Results

It took me 12 test shots and five balloons before I was ready to try a balloon filled with water. I had to move the iPhone as close as possible to the balloon so that the sound sensor would trigger faster. Remember that you want to keep your iPhone safe and dry. It took me six tries before I was able to actually pop the balloon. It turned out that even at close range it was hard to hit the balloon with a blow dart in the dark. Here is my first successful shot. The shot was underexposed and I had to tweak it in PhotoShop. I guess I need to add another strobe to get enough light.

High Speed Water Balloon Pop

If you are interested in Triggertrap, you can find it here. The app is free but you will need the dongle and the flash adapter.