NOTE -- I haven't actually *done* this hack, but I have it here for your information and reference. Be sure to also look the additional information at the end of the page.
This is an original post to the Usenet newsgroup alt.hackers by Paal Hammersmark.
From: paal@xxyyxx.pdq (Paal Hammersmark)
Newsgroups: alt.hackers
Subject: .45 ACP/Camera Hack (long)
Date: 13 Oct 1994 23:43:10 +0100
A real hardware hack... :-)
ObFreezeTimeHack: As a hobbyist IPSC shooter, and amateur photographer I decided to take a picture of a live bullet "in flight". I had no access to high-speed cameras, so I had to solve it with an ordinary 35mm camera. The minimum shutter speed of my camera is 1/8000s, wich is hardly enough to "freeze" a normal charged 230 grains .45 Auto bullet. I chronographed the bullet to 780 fps. This means that the bullet travels approx 1.2" (2.9cm) in 1/8000s. Besides, it would be very hard to sync the camera shutter to catch the bullet as it passes the lens.
I also had an electronic flash. From the manual I found out that it could deliver flashes of only 1/20000s duration under certain conditions. It is also simple to trigger an electronic flash. I built a cheap trigger circuit from a CMOS inverter and a transistor.
On a bottle I glued a thin ribbon of aluminum-foil in an arc. The ribbon acted as an old style window-burglar alarm. When the bottle broke, the ribbon tore apart, and the trigger circuit fired the flash.
On an indoor shooting-range, I rigged my camera, flash, bottle and trigger circuit. Downrange I lit a candle to aim at, because the picture had to be taken in darkness. I set the shutter on the camera to "BULB" (open), loaded my gun, aimed at the bottle and fired - FLASH! The result is an almost crystal clear picture, showing a bottle broken into thousands of pieces, but still standing on it's bottom like nothing happened. The bullet can be seen on the exit side about 1" >from the bottle. There is a "mist" of small glass fragments on both the entrance and exit side of the bottle.
ObSecondFreezeTimeHack: Because the bullets travels slower than sound I modified the trigger curcuit to respond to sound. In this way I could take pictures of the bullet leaving the barrel. I took a series of pictures in all phases of a gun-cycle by varying the distance between the microphone and the gun. This learned me a lot of what's really going on when you fire a gun.
WARNING: Guns should be handled with care! The above experiment was practiced under safe condtitions. Be careful if you are going to try something similar.
Well, after about 50 e-mails asking how I did this, where do I get the equipiment, and where is the picture, I'm finally putting some contnet on high-speed flash photography here.
Perhaps, one of these days I'll even get around to taking some stop- motion photos!
Note for high speed photography: Studio flash systems generally take between 1/200th and 1/1500th of a second to dump out their light. This is fast enough to freeze much motion but won't stop a bullet or give you a perfectly sharp splash. Studio strobes are designed for relatively long illumination times because color film actually suffers some reciprocity failure at the very short exposure times of on-camera flashes that aren't working hard. In other words, Kodak and Fuji don't guarantee that you'll get correct color balance at 1/50,000 of a second because the red, green, and blue layers of the film respond differently to being illuminated for so short a time. If you want to do high-speed photography, your options are (1) use an on-camera flash set for 1/32nd power, or (2) get a studio strobe system specifically designed for stop-motion capability.
Note: Call 1-800-CALUMET to get a catalog with a good selection of studio flashes with illustrations. Kapture Group sells equipment for high-speed photography.
You can also visit http://www.woodselec.com/ for supplies.
Definitive set of web pages by Andrew Davidhazy the the Rochester Institute of Technology
IMHO, the best tutorial on how to do this without spending an arm and a leg
Some of the classics, plus some new photos
Taken simply with a 35mm SLR!
Students, menaing like 12 and 14 year olds!
Doc was the pioneer of stop motion photography and this site is actually a museum gallery ad for an exhibition of his work.
Originally born in Nebraska, he went on the become famous for his strobe photography
Hmmm.... Science and discovery center in Aurora, NE. I may have to go there one of these days.
Offered by the Edgerton Explorit center (above). Only $37.00 for what they claim is hundreds of Docs photos.
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Author: Will England (will@mylanders.com)
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