High speed photography is the art of photographing events far too fast for the eye to see. Usually, there is a flash unit, some sort of trigger to activate the flash, and a camera. The room in which the photo will be taken is as dark as possible, and the camera's shutter is opened for 1-2 seconds. When the event triggers the flash, the resulting light illuminates the event and exposes the film. Here are a couple of tips for taking high speed photos with a point-and-shoot digital camera.
The bullet photos were taken in the MIT course 6.163 Strobe Project Laboratory with two others: Maria Prus and Cha O'Connell. The water droplet collisions were also done in 6.163 as a final course project. You can see more droplet collision photos, as well as setup and equipment photos at my Picasa web album.
final report [pdf] (unfinished) describing the method and apparatus for creating the drop collision photographs.
Click a picture to see a larger view.
