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This slow motion Apollo 11 launch footage shot in 1969 still looks absolutely incredible today

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This is a video we’ve actually featured before, way back in 2014, but it appears to be making the rounds on social media again and it’s well worth a revisit. It was shot by NASA, obviously, and it’s footage of the Apollo 11 launch, shot on 16mm film at 500 frames per second in 1969. Now, that might not seem like a lot compared to the crazy slow motion cameras available today, but 53 years ago, that was pretty impressive!

When shot at 500 frames per second and played back at 30 frames per second turns that ~30-second real-time clip into an 8-minute and 22-second sequence that you just can’t take your eyes away from. The Saturn V rocket that launched Apollo 11 was an extremely powerful Heavy Lift Vehicle. It was the heaviest rocket ever to ever fly successfully, weighing in at 6.2 million pounds fully loaded.

This is why your camera shoots 29.97fps (not 30fps) and why it doesn’t really matter any more

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If you’re not dealing with broadcast, and you’re simply uploading to YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, etc. then I’ll save you some time. You don’t have to stick with 29.97 framerate. It’s old, it’s obsolete, it’s no longer technically relevant, shoot and play back at whatever framerate you like.

If you want to delve a little deeper into why 29.97fps is even a thing, check out this video from Matt Parker at Standup Maths. In it, he talks about how 30fps became 29.97fps in the first place. It basically boils down to a combination of the frequency of the electrical supply (60Hz) and the amount of broadcast “bandwidth” that was available to the first colour analogue TV signals.

This 20 year old Nikon 35mm SLR is faster than their new D5 DSLR

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Twenty years ago, Nikon released a very special camera; The Nikon F3H (“H” for “High Speed”).  Designed specifically for super fast burst shooting, it keeps up well with many of today’s modern DSLRs.

Capable of shooting at 13fps, this rare modification based off the Nikon F3 and MD-4 motordrive manages to stand up against any of the latest and greatest modern DSLRs.

Learn How Your DSLR’s Shutter Works In This Video Of A Canon 7D’s Guts Filmed At 10,000 Frames Per Second

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Ever wonder what it looks like inside your DSLR when you trigger the shutter? So did the team over at the Slo Mo Guys and, luckily, they have a Phantom to record the action at 10,000 frames per second. In the video below, you can witness what your shutter looks like as it opens and closes at various frame rates. When watching the shutter fire in real time, it’s sometimes difficult to even notice a difference; however in slow motion you can really get good a good look at the mechanism.

How The Launch of Apollo 11 Looks Slowed Down at 500 FPS

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It’s been forty five years since Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin became the first two men to walk on the moon. The more unbelievable fact for us, however, is that apparently had cameras that could run at five hundred frames per second back then, as well.

For thirty seconds, the launch of Apollo 11 was filmed by a camera on location at 500 FPS. The ending result was a stretched out to about eight minutes, and gave us one of our sharpest looks ever at the launch of a spacecraft. Obviously, the content shown is a breathtaking sight on its own, but I really found myself focusing on the aesthetics of the video itself after a few repeat views. How amazing is it that we’re able to see footage this sharp, fluid, and clear from 1969? Shot originally on 16MM film, the film was spotlessly converted to HD for us to be able to view online. Check it out for yourself, and stick around for the commentary by Spacecraft Films‘ Mark Gray. For a video that lasts just under ten minutes, what you learn for nearly its entire duration is half of the enjoyment.

Seriously though. With just how expensive film should have been at that point, NASA must actually have been receiving sufficient funding back then.

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