Category Archives: High Speed Videos

High Speed Videos 3, 4, and 5!

Published: September 24th, 2008 | Categories: All, High Speed Videos | 0 Comments

I’ve just posted three more videos in the High Speed Videos page – this time it’s using the free weight drop tower in my college. The material being impacted is some sort of insulating wood pulp that I found lying about in the basement. The first video shows two pieces of the wood pulp lying flat and being struck by a flat striker. It’s interesting to see how the top piece apears to be sucked up as the striker rebounds – it’s not of course rather it’s due to the potential energies stored in both pieces during the compression stage. After this I wondered what would happen If I tuned both peces in their sides – they are much less stiff in this orientation so I was expecting a lot of crushing to happen – check out videos four and five to see what did happen. For the engineers out there, for each video I think the kinetic energy of the striker just before impact was 40J, with an impact velocity of around 4m/s. You can work out the mass from that if you care to do so.


By the way if there’s anything specific that someone would like to see smashed to smithereens drop me an email and I’ll do my best to accomodate – I’m sure a lot of you have some great ideas, but nothing too messy :)

3. High Speed Compression of Ply Wood PART 1

4. High Speed Compression of Ply Wood PART 2

5. High Speed Compression of Ply Wood PART 3

High Speed Camera Takes 1,000,000 Frames Per Second!

Published: September 21st, 2008 | Categories: All, High Speed Videos | 2 Comments
phantom v12 camera with 1000000fps
The Phantom v12 – Just one of the many things in this world that you wish you had, but will never, ever own.

The camera I use to take my high speed videos is a Phantom v5.1, capable of taking a whopping 98,000 frames per second. Well it was whopping, until I stumbled (not stumbleuponededed, just regular stumbled) the Vision Research website and noticed that the Phantom series camera is currently at v12 – suddenly v5 sounds rather dated. This latest camera can record video at an unbelievable 1,000,000 frames per second! I can’t imagine what kind of application would require 1,000,000fps – crack propagation in glass maybe? Apart from being oh so more advanced, it also looks a lot cooler than the v5 – the v5 looks very bulky and square. The v12 is streamlined by comparison. It almost looks like it could glide through water, maybe it’s just the handle that gives me this impression. I could not find any price details on the Vision Research site but considering that the v5 set my college back about €24000, I don’t expect we’ll be upgrading anytime soon.

Some of its more awesome features include

  • Maximum Resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels,
  • 1,000,000 frames per second at 128 x 8 pixels,
  • Minimum exposure time of 300 nano-seconds!,
  • Gigabit ethernet connectivity,
  • 6400 ISO monochrome, 1600 ISO colour,
  • 6242 frames per second at maximum 1280×800 resolution (my videos are usually 4000fps at 480×320!)

These are the most eye catching technical specs – there are plenty more but none that most people wold care about. I think I’ll start saving…

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High Speed Videos

High Speed Video No2: Sparks From A Grinding Wheel

Published: August 17th, 2008 | Categories: All, High Speed Videos | 0 Comments

I’ve just posted a new high speed video on YouTube of a grinding wheel doing some serious business to a metal rod (well not too serious). I’ll be posting it here soon aswell. If you want to keep track of all the videos I shoot without checking back here then you can subscribe to my YouTube Channel.

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High Speed Videos… No1: Apple Shot With Gas Gun

Published: July 31st, 2008 | Categories: All, High Speed Videos | 0 Comments

To get away from the HDR photography for a little while I’ve added a new page where I’ll be posting high speed videos of anything interesting I shoot. One of the great advantages of still being in college is the opportunity to use all the cool equipment lying around – in my case a high speed camera and a gas powered gun! I’ve posted one video so far – you can see it here. With any luck I’ll be able to shoot a few more over the next couple of weeks; I’ll post them soon….

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