Many machine elements are lubricated with oil or grease. The flow of lubricant depends on different parameters such as surface roughness, surface energy, temperature, etc. A known problem with rolling bearings is that lubricants have to be refilled more frequently if a gas stream passes through the bearing. It is therefore important to know the behaviour of the lubricant in order to predict, e.g. bearing fatigue life due to a gas stream. By studying the droplets thrown out into the air after passing an elastohydrodynamic contact, the most important parameters for oil drop formation have been determined. The analysis is based on picture processing and statistical methods. The experiments show that an increase in temperature, viscosity or surface velocity will increase the total drop volume. Decreased contact pressure and pure rolling also increase the total drop volume. The volume flow, passing the Hertzian contact area, varied between 18 and 30% of the air born oil-drop flow and it is reasonable to assume that increased flow of air-borne droplets will decrease the film thickness due to insufficient replenishment.