High Speed Camera Info

[Raadio]

You all have them! What are some of the better, worse, less expensive, and best value cameras?

[bvdave]

unless you got a lot of r&d money, its best to rent them, plan a full day of tests and get it all done in a day. id LOVE to own one one day but I dont see it happening any time soon :( so renting is much more realistic

[Jack Wood]

Yes, me and Dave have discussed this before over in TechPB.

Even for us (PE) buying the kind of camera that I would want is just not feasible. For the machine that we used to get the footage I just posted, you would be looking at upwards of $50,000 + lights +this and that. Even then, like most things, they go out of date quickly and the technology is moving on all the time.

Renting is much more viable. Generally tou get the very latest equipment, and a few days rental comes in at under $1000. The problem is, you rent th camera, shoot a load of footage, then while you're reviewing it after the camera has been returned, you learn new things and wish you had the camera straigh back! :)

By the way, our stuff was shot on Photron SA-1

[Simon]

The problem is, you rent th camera, shoot a load of footage, then while you're reviewing it after the camera has been returned, you learn new things and wish you had the camera straigh back! :)

That's the problem I ran into after the first two "test/rental" sessions.

I justified purchasing a camera, and you can see from my footage that it's not anywhere near as "pretty" as Jacks, because of the amount of filming and investigating I wanted to do on a whole range of products. When I was renting over here it was several thousand dollars a day. 10 days work justified the camera. We use the camera all the time for testing and verification on everything from guns, barrels, loader and guns.

I never intended for the footage to become public, and it was really just an engineering tool, so black and white was very adequate for our needs. Black and white brings the cost down, and means you don't need as much light as filming in colour.

I have the highest spec version of the Troubleshooter (http://www.fastecimaging.com/indust_cams.html) and when we bought it the cost was $20,000. I believe it has more than paid for itself several times over.

Lately I have been very interested in trying out one of the new range of SLR's with high speed capabilities, like the one Gordon has. Partly because it might help with my long time goal of stopping electronic cheating in paintball...

[Raadio]

The Casio EX-F1 came out after CES last year and retails for I think...850USD

I've seen the youtube footage, but never talked to anyone who actually OWNED one.

And is 1200FPS fast enough?

[cockerpunk]

The Casio EX-F1 came out after CES last year and retails for I think...850USD

I've seen the youtube footage, but never talked to anyone who actually OWNED one.

And is 1200FPS fast enough?

thats the camera that PunkWorks owns. you have to make sure to buy the Pro version though, otherwise it doesn't do the high speed.

1200 fps is good enough for many things, but not perfect. the primary reason we bought ours was to pick up and estimate paintball spin, which it does do fairly well under the right conditions. however, its just not fast enough to pick up impacts, to see the loading cycle in the way that Jack can, and watch the acceleration of paintballs.

so its useful ... but my rule of thumb with HSV is ... more frames the better!

[Simon]

We found that 4000fps is about the minimum for decently seeing an impact.

For watching a bolt cycle we use 1000 to 2000 frames per second.

For loaders we typically use 1000 fps because it makes the math easier.

[cockerpunk]

if you can say, how fast does your camera go simon?

[Simon]

All of the specs are in the link above. It will go up to 16,000 fps, but the resolution is low at that rate and it needs so much light we tend to melt things.

You need soooo much light for good results. Nowadays we always try to film outside on a nice day AND hit it with spotlights.

Actually we have melted a lot of things in the name of science and high speed filming.

We've melted hoppers, grips, ball detents, bolt o-rings all sorts of stuff.

[cockerpunk]

yeah, we try to do all our 1200 stuff outside. then i adjust the aperture to try to get as long a focal length as possible, which means a smaller aperture, which means MORE light.

bryce is a lighting and scenes guy, and if we try to do anything inside he has to pull out some freaking ridiculous lights. its no joke about melting things.

[Jack Wood]

Plasma lighting :)
It's the future :)


If only we could afford it.........

[coyut]

HEP prices will come down soon when it widely hits the market.

[Simon]

Plasma lighting :)
It's the future :)


If only we could afford it.........

How much?


HEP prices will come down soon when it widely hits the market.

Yep. It's always the way. :)

[coyut]

Interesting on how all balls seem to rip on the upper barrel side.
It looks like the ball gets lifted and pushed upwards. Maybee because of turbulence in the air stream coming from the bolt?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QS1XgVYIu1k

[krush]

I've had way too much fun with the low budget Casio EX-FH20 (http://www.dpreview.com/news/0809/08091601casio_fh20.asp), cockerpunks is the model above mine, and there have been a few revisions since

A few examples on my channel (http://www.youtube.com/user/krusha26) but as you can see with the FPS/resolution limitations its really just a 210fps camera althought it can do 1000 :\

I think you can find the FH20 for under 3-400 now, and its a decent picture camera too!

[cockerpunk]

Interesting on how all balls seem to rip on the upper barrel side.
It looks like the ball gets lifted and pushed upwards. Maybee because of turbulence in the air stream coming from the bolt?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QS1XgVYIu1k

more likely the pressure gradient that i observed when i did CFD on a stacked tube poppit valve gun. the upper part of the bolt tend to fill with the air that was already in the bolt, and the power pulse tends to stay low until the ball starts to move forward.

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y161/gerglmuff/untitled-3.jpg

thats a velocity profile i do believe, im forgetting if the units are US or metric, but you can see the gradient.

[Raadio]

more likely the pressure gradient that i observed when i did CFD on a stacked tube poppit valve gun. the upper part of the bolt tend to fill with the air that was already in the bolt, and the power pulse tends to stay low until the ball starts to move forward.

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y161/gerglmuff/untitled-3.jpg

thats a velocity profile i do believe, im forgetting if the units are US or metric, but you can see the gradient.


okay see....

^^^ THAT ^^^

is pretty damn cool.

*bowdown*

[cockerpunk]

all in a days work at punkworks ... all in a days work ...

[Raadio]

all in a days work at punkworks ... all in a days work ...

Thats why I will forever turn an allen key while you guys.... do cool stuff like that! :p

[Simon]

Gordon, Can you check out this thread for me http://www.simonized.com/showthread.php?8-Using-High-Speed-Video-to-check-for-illegal-modes-and-electronics-cheating and let me know if you can get decent enough results with your camera for it to be worth getting one and trying this a little more. Chuck Hendsch was interested in using this concept at the NPPL events.