My most technically challenging gun related photo

[Kentak]

Yes, it's real 9mm bullet shot from a real gun. I took it many years ago and had misplaced the negative, which I just recently found. I used a film camera and developed the B&W film in my darkroom. Nothing special about the equipment--an ordinary 35mm SLR and an off-camera electronic flash unit.

If you're not familiar with more traditional photo equipment, this might not mean much, but here goes.

The key is using the off-camera electronic flash to make the "fast" exposure needed to stop the motion of the bullet. The flash unit had an electric cable connection that allowed it to be fired remotely. To trigger the flash, I laminated two sheets of aluminum foil, separated by a sheet of paper to the back of the target. Using small alligator clamps, I connected the foil to the flash cable leads. The idea was that the bullet passing through the target would make a momentary electrical path between the foils and trigger the flash.

The target was set up in my basement with the camera and flash positioned beyond and to the side. I had a table set up to shoot from support. I set the camera's self timer and an exposure time of about two seconds. The lights were turned off so that there was only enough ambient light to allow me to see the target. I positioned myself at the table, started the timer with a remote shutter release, and took aim. When I heard the shutter open, I fired. I was delighted when I saw the flash go off, since the foil trigger idea was untested. The camera shutter closed and I developed the film.

The film exposure was mostly a matter of guesswork and luck. It turned out not to be ideal, but I got a workable negative out of it. Good thing, that was the one and only time I tried this photo shoot. I had NO idea ahead of time if this would work as well as it did. The unknown quantity was the lag time between the bullet triggering the flash and the development of the actual flash in the strobe tube. Too long, and the bullet would be out of the picture. Also, if the flash duration was too long, the image of the bullet could be blurred too much.

The gun was a S&W 5903. The round was a handloaded FMJ that, as I remembered, I loaded on the light side. The backstop was a box of scrap lumber and rags with a concrete, below grade wall beyond.

The only manipulation I did on the photo to post it here was to crop it and adjust brightness and contrast to make the bullet stand out a little better from the black background.

K

 

[JJ Hiryuu]

That is really neat, not just the photo, but from a technical standpoint.

Most people would use very expensive very high speed cameras to achieve the effect you were able to get with some foil and a little electrical know-how.

Very clever, and very neat picture.

 

[Paulus]

For those of us photographically-challenged, could you describe how a 2 second shutter speed could capture this?

Slightly OT: what shutter speed and f/stop setting could conceivably capture an image of a bullet travelling at 1,000 ft/second?

Paulus

 

[230RN]

Nice job.

I used the same double-sheet of foil technique to trigger a high voltage air spark in the same application, except I was using a .22 rifle. Pics were lousy, although in one I thought I could see the Schlieren shock wave shadow, but they were not impressive enough to enter them in the "230RN Great Pictures Album To Be Handed Down To Future Admirers For Their Amazement And Wonder."

The spark was from two .05 uuF 10,000 volt caps in series charged to about to about 15,000 volts from a 10KV oil burner transformer and a mess of 1N400X 1000 PIV diodes in series.

The spark electrodes were about 1" apart enclosed in an open glass tube, just for stable positioning.

Spark was triggered by an electrode consisting of one turn of wire around the outside of the glass tube and hit by the trigger voltage of a conventional Xenon flash.

I used this method because of the very very short light pulse from such an arrangement, and the minimum afterglow.

I used to design and build high-intensity photographic flash units, and I'm a ham radio operator, so all this was second-nature to me. I do not recomend anyone messing around with high voltage unless they're well-versed in dealing with high voltage.

I'm sure I could have improved the technique, but the main problem I had was the fact of the long delay in processing --by the time I got the images back, I had lost interest in the project. Although I used to do a lot of darkroom work, at the time, I did not have even a developing tank to process the negs.

Nice job. I wish my attempts had been as successful!

ETA Paulus, there was no shutter speed as such in any of these open-shutter exposure techniques. Exposure time was determined by the length of time of the flash in a darkened room with the shutter held open.

I estimated my exposure time with the air spark as about two millionths of a second, and using a xenon flash tube, if it is lightly loaded, exposure would be about 2 or 3 milliseconds. The usual "living room" picture with the xenon flash is about 6 to 10 milliseconds, depending. The usual chemical flashbulbs they used to use had a flash duration of around 50-100 milliseconds. (These were aluminum, magnesium or tantalum foil or fine turnings (like steel wool) in a pressurized oxygen-filled glass bulb.) Just FYI.

 

[Mr White]

Cool! Lets see someone try that with a digital camera.
The things you can do with good old film and some ingenuity!

 

[Kentak]

For those of us photographically-challenged, could you describe how a 2 second shutter speed could capture this?

Slightly OT: what shutter speed and f/stop setting could conceivably capture an image of a bullet travelling at 1,000 ft/second?

Happy to explain.

There are two ways to capture a fast moving object on film. The "usual" way is to use a very fast shutter speed. If you've got enough light, such as on a sunny day, just dial the shutter speed down to 1/1000 sec or so and capture Junior's leap over the goal line at the big football game.

The other way is to make the exposure with a very short duration burst of light. Ever watch people dancing in a darkened room with a disco strobe light flashing? Each flash illuminates the moving dancer with such a short burst of light that he or she appears motionless during that flash.

That's the technique I used. The shutter speed is irrelevant, since the basement was darkened and I was using the flash (quick burst) to make the exposure. An electronic flash unit, such as I used, often has a manual control to vary the amount of light it produces. It does so, not by varying the "brightness" of the light, but it's duration. On low power, it quenches the flash electronically to produce a very quick burst of light. On high power, the light burst is of longer duration and, therefore, produces more total light to expose the film.

Since I wanted to "stop" a bullet, I set the flash on low power--quick burst. And, since the basement wasn't totally dark, I closed down the aperture (high f-stop number) so the effect of ambient light would be minimized. How did I get enough light to get an adequate picture with a quick burst and small aperture? By placing the flash very close to the target. A couple of feet or so.

The purpose of the two second shutter was to give me enough time to make the shot, but not so long as to allow ambient light to affect the exposure.

K

 

[Kentak]

Cool! Lets see someone try that with a digital camera.
The things you can do with good old film and some ingenuity!

Thank you, sir. This picture was made at least 13 or 14 years ago. I got out of darkroom work shortly after. I had even done some color work. Boy, talk about a time consuming and expensive process! It was fun, and I learned a lot about color, but it was too labor intensive.

I know what you mean about film photography. One wonders what Ansel Adams, or any other of the great B&W artists would have been able to do with digital. Their depth of knowledge about light, film, chemistry, and darkroom technique had to be incredible.

But, digital is into its own, and is the future of photography. Artists will use computers to manipulate their images instead of a darkroom, but the eye of the photographer will still be the most important part of the art.

K

 

[bwavec]

FANTASTIC CAPTURE !!!!!!

And thanks for the technical info as well !

 

[10 Ring Tao]

Outstanding!

Although it is a bit weird to see the bullet coming out of the target instead of into it.

 

[Javelin]

WoW that is really neat!

 

[Fly320s]

10 Ring,

Turn your monitor around.


Kentak,

Fantastic work. I like your ingenious flash trigger.

 

[Neo-Luddite]

Fantastic. Egerton would have been proud!

 

[Kentak]

Thanks for the nice replies, guys. Glad you enjoyed the pic.

 

[v35]

Outstanding!

Kentak, given that the technical challenge of a remotely triggered off-camera flash remains the same, if I correctly understand what you did there's no reason one couldn't accomplish the same today with a digital camera, is there?

To think you did this on the first attempt is amazing. The instant gratification of digital photography gives me all kinds of ideas.

 

[MKEITH]

That is one of the coolest things I have seen in a long time. Nice work!

 

[kd7nqb]

THIS ROCKS!!!!!!!!

Thats pretty sweet, the fact that its 13yrs old makes it cooler if somebody did this today there would be a fair number of people who would guess it was photoshop work. Not to say that a person could not photoshop old photos but its cool to know how it all worked. Your foil idea is awesome.

 

[Chris B]

While technical jargon makes my head hurt, this is a sweet pic.

 

[Kentak]

Kentak, given that the technical challenge of a remotely triggered off-camera flash remains the same, if I correctly understand what you did there's no reason one couldn't accomplish the same today with a digital camera, is there?

I'm pretty sure it can. It's all going to depend on the technicals of the camera. My interest in photography has cooled to more casual, practical purposes. I have a fairly ordinary digital camera that is a few years old and does fine for snapshots. I am just not familiar with higher capability D cams and their technical aspects. I suspect only the pro-level (expensive) cameras have the manual shutter and aperture control needed for this technique. As long as the shutter can be kept open long enough to make the pistol shot *and* not gather enough ambient light to ruin the exposure, it should work. Any of the traditional off-camera flash units should work as long as it has a remote cable connection (Actually, even without such a connection, one could rig something up to the exposed contacts on the mounting shoe).

Okay, all you digital camera experts, weigh in here please!

K

 

[mattsb2000]

Okay, all you digital camera experts, weigh in here please!

Nice picture. I like how you did it without an optical trigger. I'll have to try that with my Vivitar 285.

You can do that with a digital camera btw. Stopping motion is the same with a sensor or film.

 

[Kentak]

Thats pretty sweet, the fact that its 13yrs old makes it cooler if somebody did this today there would be a fair number of people who would guess it was photoshop work. Not to say that a person could not photoshop old photos but its cool to know how it all worked. Your foil idea is awesome.

Thanks, I appreciate the positive feedback. I would have to be pretty pathetic to fake this and pass it off as my own. LOL.

As for the foil idea, I honestly don't remember if I stumbled across that idea on my own or had read about it somewhere else. As you can see above, 230RN has used the technique as well.

K

 

[The Wiry Irishman]

Quote:
Kentak, given that the technical challenge of a remotely triggered off-camera flash remains the same, if I correctly understand what you did there's no reason one couldn't accomplish the same today with a digital camera, is there?
I'm pretty sure it can. It's all going to depend on the technicals of the camera. My interest in photography has cooled to more casual, practical purposes. I have a fairly ordinary digital camera that is a few years old and does fine for snapshots. I am just not familiar with higher capability D cams and their technical aspects. I suspect only the pro-level (expensive) cameras have the manual shutter and aperture control needed for this technique. As long as the shutter can be kept open long enough to make the pistol shot *and* not gather enough ambient light to ruin the exposure, it should work. Any of the traditional off-camera flash units should work as long as it has a remote cable connection (Actually, even without such a connection, one could rig something up to the exposed contacts on the mounting shoe).

Okay, all you digital camera experts, weigh in here please!

Digital cameras are fast replacing film, which, as a film junkie, saddens me. Worse yet, the digitals are getting better and better to the point where my list of things that film can do better than digital has been reduced to a single item: long exposures.

The digital camera's sensors when left exposed for long-duration shots tend to pick up a lot of ambient noise, filling the picture with a bunch of white snowy crap. Newer cameras aren't near as bad as when the technology first came out, but they still do it. (Soon enough they'll correct that, too, and I'll have to put away my soap box and shut up about the superiority of film) In regards to your posted picture (which is excellent by the way) I believe a digital camera could duplicate it. If you're shooting in near-total or total darkness, a modern digital camera shouldn't generate any noise. If your digital SLR was older though, it might not be so clean.

I think the lesson in all this to use your digital for family picnics and use a REAL camera for REAL photography.

 

[chihuahuatn]

Film has been dead and buried years ago, only B&W photographers deal with film and select photographers shooting chrome for “artistic value.” My medium format was replaced with my 1DS when that first came out 4 years ago. Noise is a non issue with newer noise reduction software when editing digital images.


The shot is great, when shooting something like a bullet the camera does not have fast enough shutter speed to stop it in mid frame. However the flash can act as a camera shutter of sorts. It has to be done with a high speed strobe triggered by either the noise of the gun or the projectile striking a triggering mechanism such as lazar or IR beam to be more specific . The shutter is locked open for the procedure and currently no still camera I know of has a shutter speed fast enough to essentially freeze a bullet's travel; nor are typical on-camera or studio flash units adequate for this since most flash sync is at 250 or 1/500.

Harold Edgerton at MIT was a pioneer in this field of photography and this subject is written about extensively Google his name.

 

[Kentak]

Wiry,

As a film traditionalist, I shared your concerns about digital photography as it evolved over the past couple of decades. As you said, the list of advantages of film--for "serious" photogs--has gotten smaller. Several years ago, I read in a photo mag that digital cams would need 6-8 MP to match the resolution capability of film. Well, that's been achieved, and at reasonable prices. And, let's face it, Photoshopping done by a knowledgeable operator is amazing in what it can achieve compared to tedious darkroom work.

Although I would like to have a high level digital cam, I can't justify the cost since I wouldn't use its capabilities enough to justify it.

Know what I do for my "serious" digital needs? I shoot with my film Nikon 8008 and have the film developed and digitalized by my local photo store. I have gotten excellent digital images that way. A little costly for high volume work, but fine for my occasional needs.

K

 

[mattsb2000]

Running your flash at a lower setting will do more to freeze motion too btw. If you have a fast enough lens good iso performance in your camera or film.

 

[Kentak]

Running your flash at a lower setting will do more to freeze motion too btw.

Yep, that's what I did. Low flash setting = short duration burst.

K