Hello Geeks, its been a while since i last posted something here, im back with a cool little project to show you.

Ever since i got an SLR i have been thinking of the possible ways to take photography to the next level, incorporating electronics with the fine art of photography. The idea is to make a device capable of triggering an external flash gun at 1/30,000 second to capture Events naturally happening too fast for us to realize or comprehend. The whole point is to capture a single frame at the exact moment when a certain event happens. for example the moment a water drop hits a plane of water. Or a falling light bulb as it smashes on the floor.
We have many variables in this operation. Mainly we need a sensor to trip the sequence, we need to be able to adjust the sensitivity of the sensor and the delay after which the flash fires.

I Designed and built a circuit capable of supporting many sensors and controlling many actuators.
I started with creating the toughest of all sensors that will enable me to take breathtaking photographs of water drops as they hits the water. I'll stop blabbering now, and will let the Photos speak for themselves. Enjoy!

PS: All photos are as shot, directly from the camera, no editing involved.


Here you can see the sensor and the control board.


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The result....


































Wow man, you never cease to impress :)
You should try something else then the drop of water though, it has been tried and overused already.
rolf wroteWow man, you never cease to impress :)
You should try something else then the drop of water though, it has been tried and overused already.
Time Warp pretty much tried everything
Engineers never cease to impress me :p However, did you try taking such pictures by hand? I'm glad it doesn't take quantum physics. Here's with one hand dropping the lemon, the other on the camera.



This shot however, took many tries :p

impressive pics, though Im just wondering wouldnt it be easier to configure your camera to take a thousand high speed pictures and drop the water rather than adding a sensor? it gives you a much higher time window (in my opinion)
babum wroteimpressive pics, though Im just wondering wouldnt it be easier to configure your camera to take a thousand high speed pictures and drop the water rather than adding a sensor? it gives you a much higher time window (in my opinion)
you can take a few pictures at a high speed (on average 5fps, but then, it depends on the camera), but when the camera buffer gets full you have to wait till the camera dumps the pictures to the memory card to go on. In my case the camera buffer usually gets full after 9-10 pictures, let alone a thousand...

edit: also, there's the flash reloading time. it needs a second or so to reload between each shot, so you can't burst shots and flash at the same time.
oh I didn't take that into consideration. the fact that you are dealing with upper level limits of the equipment changes a lot of things.
Thanks Rolf :) if you have some suggestions, im all ears.

Good shots Philip ! The difference between your method and mine is that when i press the shutter, im 100% sure im going to catch the action :P over and over again. Glad i did not have to try the manual method.
J4D wroteThanks Rolf :) if you have some suggestions, im all ears.

Good shots Philip ! The difference between your method and mine is that when i press the shutter, im 100% sure im going to catch the action :P over and over again. Glad i did not have to try the manual method.
I don't know... How about snow (slush), eggs (that might be a bad... or a great one maybe...), tomato puree... I'm curious about such substances. Or breaking glass (like test tubes maybe)... make sure you test it first with something soft so that glass don't break.
Good job J4D!
Here's a detailed post by Bassam Jalgha from DepotBeirut, detailing how he achieved high-speed photography by creating a sound–triggered flash.
6 days later
3 months later
Ra8 wroteJ4D check this picture i found on StumbleUpon, can you do something similar?: http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/4Ard5y/www.mojomechanics.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/Artistic-Photography-6.jpeg
This is awesome ! Although from the grainy picture and weird aspect ratio I'd say its a screen grab from a video taken by a high speed video camera. It would be tough trying to catch this on camera every single time, let alone the bubble being outside lighted by the sun with an awesome background, also you have the issue of what sensor to use with a bubble floating around.
Here are some photos that I took without a sensor, using only some constant lights, stand, and my old sony alpha dslr.

hope you like them :)








Interesting ! :)

Here are some newer Photos taken with the device, and photos of the device itself.












6 months later
Thanks :) Here are some more photos.



Thanks, its actually milk. I want to try other stuff. I suppose if a use paint the result of mixing colors would be awesome! Only a test would tell. :)