DIYPhotography.net

How would you go about freezing a bullet in mid air?

There is the high enthusiast version, using a cameraAxe and a precise gate similar mechanisms; There is the cheapo version that uses the Hiviz kit and there the Air-Gap Flash.

All the strobes, flashes, monoblocks and heads the use on regular basis are built around a pushing energy into a xenon tube. It is fast. 1/40,000th of a second fast. But from a bullet point of view this is actually kind of slow. Think Matrix-bullet-time kinda thing. Only the bullet is their fast one. Click to continue ›

About three weeks ago we featured a comprehensive tutorial for doing high speed bullet photography.

In that post, Maurice Ribble explained how to use a $195 camera Axe to literally freeze a bullet in mid air (or in mid egg, or in mid cantaloupe...).

Photographer DestinWS came up with a youtube video that explains how to achieve a similar effect (thought less accurate) with a Hiviz kit for $20. While the Hiviz kit does not provide some of the more advanced features of the Camera Axe, it is a great and cheap way to enter the world of High Speed Photography. Video tut after the jump Click to continue ›

Ok, I'll be the first to admit, Lego makes some awesome stuff, and I spent countless hours as a kid, Playing with those bricks. My favorite birthday gift for my 8th birthday was the legendary 497 Galaxy Explorer system. With passage of time Lego systems became more complex and involve electronics, special plastics and even programmable pats. Complex to the point where you can turn a Lego Mindstorm NXT set to a device for taking high speed images. This is by no means a cheap solution (unless you already have all the parts), it is a fun project for the engineeringly capable. So photographer and strip light master Silver Paul did just that - converted a Mindstorm set to high speed photography trigger..

The following is not a full tutorial, here is the obligatory disclaimer from Paul: This is in no way a guide or how to, it's a documentation of my observations of what I did. Enjoy, try it for yourself, but on your own head be it! I take no responsibility for you being idiot enough to follow some random geezers instructions on t'interweb! Click to continue ›

Most photographers have seen some of Dr. Harold Edgerton's work like a bullet shooting through an apple or a bullet splitting a playing card. Back in the 1960's when Edgerton was taking these types of photos it was quite revolutionary. To take these kinds of photographs Dr. Edgerton had to first invent the modern camera flash. Today duplicating these photos is feasible for just about any amateur photographer who is willing to spend a little time understanding some common high speed photography techniques and some money to buy some specialized equipment. However, the really exciting idea isn't reproducing his iconic photographs, but having people take creative new high speed photos.

© MIT 2010. Courtesyof MIT Museum

This article is going to show you how to use the Camera Axe and it's projectile sensor to take some of your own amazing high speed photographs of objects being hit by bullets. At first it may seem that there are only a few objects to shoot, but once you start getting into this field of photography it seems like every trip to the grocery store, farmers market, dollar store, or yard sale becomes an expedition to find new targets. Click to continue ›

If you're reading DIYP for a while you probably know that High Speed Photography is not about high shutter speeds. Au contraire. It is about shooting very long exposures in bulb mode, and using a strobe to freeze the action with a split second light.

This means that once you have a setup read to go, you turn off the lights. go back to your setup and pop the balloon / break the glass / shoot the bullet. Kinda messy and uncomfortable. Ask Edward Horsford, the exploding balloons magician.

Photographer Matt Richardson came up with a better to do it. Matt was already Using an Arduino as the triggering device for the strobe. It only made sense to Let the Arduino turn off the lights and open the camera shutter once the setup was ready.

In the video after the jump, Matt explains this concept, and shared the circuit to make this magic happen. Click to continue ›

Not a long while ago the net was exploding with Corrie White's Fun with Water set on Flickr. Her control over those drops, their color and their timing was remarkable indeed.

This is why I am very exited to share Corrie's very extensive guide for water drops photography.

The guide is for all levels going explaining the setup, lights, optional use of a drip mechanism and post. Click to continue ›

London based photographer Edward Horsford photographs balloons in a very unique way. He freezes them as the leave his hands to explode.

The pictures are taken with a "high tech" DIYed sound trigger, Strobes, and one rusty stick.

The following post which bounces from interview to tech details outlines the way to take such photographs. Click to continue ›

Reader Marco Jetti shared a really cool project on DIYP's flickr pool. It is an Intervalometer project call LIM (Less Is More). Intervalometer is the thingy that allows you to take a picture every X seconds. And it is made with very basic electronics. It fits in a small liquorish box (which I guess is the Italian equivalent of Altoids).

Here is the cool thing. Marco added a very detailed diagram of the circuit as well as simulation and building steps. (This is very cool, Marco did just the same with his 5 km camera trigger) Click to continue ›

You can trust Google to do things BIG. Google was set to show the rendering speed of the Google browser - Chrome.

To show how fast the Chrome browser actually is they compared it with several high speed plays. That is to say, they burned, crushed and splashed all over the place like little kids and shot it in slo-mo HD. How slow mo? 2700 frames per seconds.

(If you are reading this via RSS, and don't see the video, click through. If you do see the video, you may want to verify that your speakers are not set to high).

To show how fast the browser actually is they compared it with several high speed plays. That is to say, they burned, crushed and splashed all over the place like little kids and shot it in slo-mo HD. How slow mo? 2700 frames per seconds slow mo. They did it using a Phantom v640 cam, which can actually go up to 8K images per seconds if you are willing to throw HD away.

Click to continue ›

Gotta love strawberries. And gotta love strawberries in cream even more.

Maybe this is why my taste buds had me coming to this picture again and again.

Then again, it might be the technical details of the shot that drew my attention. Getting a nice splash is hard enough but getting strawberry on spoon splash is nearly impossible. Read on for some musings, thoughts and tips.

Click to continue ›