One For Mr. Bane ??

[billt]

Michael,

I'm always amazed when I watch the shooting shows on The Outdoor Channel, when they show those super slow motion videos, that show the bullet emerging from the muzzle, and traveling downrange, clear as a bell. Can you post a picture, (or a link to a picture), of the type of camera you guys use to get these incredible shots? And perhaps elaborate about them a bit?

Approximately how many frames per second are they running at, and how long of a video is possible with these cameras? These things slow rifle bullets to a crawl, and the brass case hangs in the air all but forever. Thanks in advance.

[Michael Bane]

They are magic, aren't they?

Here's the website for them: https://www.phantomhighspeed.com/Products/Phantom-Camera-Products

We're running the high-end Phantoms capable of a million frames per second...think about that. Typically, we run them art around 7000 frames per second to get full HD resolution out of the images — the more frames per second, the lower the resolution of the resulting image. We have used the highest zoot ones that'll put 16,000 frames-per-second at full rez, but we had "translation problems," so we backed off.

The set-ups are a bitch...the Phantoms EAT light, which is why we typically film the bulk of our hight speed stuff in the high desert at GUNSITE. In addition to the blistering hot sun, we had 4 X 4 foot mirrors and, occasionally, daylight floodlights to get the images you see on GUN STORIES and SG. Typically, we can't let our subjects stand in that light for more than 90 seconds. A typical "burn" might be 2 seconds.

Phantoms were originally designed to study explosions, oddly enough.

We're also shifting entirely to 4K video cameras. Here's a short explanation:

http://filmora.wondershare.com/video-editing-tips/4k-vs-1080p.html

In short, there is so much more "information" in the image that we are able to do more manipulation in "post" than was ever possible before. You'll see a really good example of this when THE BEST DEFENSE/MASS CASUALTY EVENT airs in late September. We shot the "master shots" both at a higher frame rate, double the "standard" frame rate of 24 frames-per-second, and the standard rate to give our editors absolute control of the images. Humans perceive reality at different "speeds," (see...I really did go to film school!), and through subtle manipulation of those speeds on screen we can create an emotional response in the viewers that would be consistent with what's happening in the Real World...

Michael B

[billt]

Thanks Mike! I really appreciate all the info. What made me post this thread is I just got finished watching an episode of "Gun Stories" about the Savage 99. They had some great slow motion shots of the bullets coming out of the muzzle. And Ashley Hlebinsky isn't too hard to look at and listen to either! That gal knows her guns!

[alfsauve]

What's a pain, is that after all the setup, the action only lasts a few seconds, then it takes minutes,many  long agonizing minutes to dump the camera's very high speed memory to a slower, more mundane disk drive.   Easily spend 30 minutes on each 10 second shot, what with setup, placement and memory dump.

[billt]

This type of photography has always amazed me. These are 4 photos taken in 1952, (the year I was born), of an atomic bomb test explosion detonated from a tower. The exposure time was just a few millionths of a second. It shows the atomic fireball just starting to grow. In the third photo down from the top, you can see lightning traveling down the guy wires from the top of the tower, where the bomb was detonated.

Also in that same photo, if you look carefully at the bottom of the photo, about an inch from the right hand edge. (Just under the shortest tower on the right side of the photo), you can see the dimly lit silhouette of an Antelope that just happened to be standing there. This was about 1,000,000 th of a second before he was vaporized by the atomic explosion. Really unbelievable photography in it's day!

http://www.printmag.com/article/four-photographs-of-an-atomic-bomb/

[Sponsor]