Comments on: “World’s Fastest Camera” Snaps 6 Million Pictures in a Single Second

By: JFay

JFay — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 16:10:05 +0000

I seen an animated video of this device on youtube some time ago but there was no explanation included, just the animated process in a loop. if you could recognize the represented instruments it wasn’t long before u understood the content…u can appreciate a science that supports itself

By: Hadland Imaging

Hadland Imaging — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 06:03:41 +0000

KMAG
please call the 800 toll free number to understatnd abit more about ultra high speed imaging.
thank you
todd

By: Hadland Imaging

Hadland Imaging — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 05:57:13 +0000

Are you kidding me….
Please do your self a favor and research.
Intensified cameras capable of 100 million fps and now up to 2 billion fps
are commonplace in the real market of ultra high speed imaging.
Intensifiers coupled to ccds are then gated to sub microsecond exposures.
for more information, please contact trumbaugh@hadlandimaging.com
1-800-248-4686

By: kmag

kmag — Sun, 10 May 2009 05:08:48 +0000

@optical-tech: If I understand correctly the phrase “spread out the light pulse to form a spectral pattern”, they use a material with a highly frequency-dependent EM propagation velocity to spread out the pulse over time. They then use the same technique to spread out the returned photons even further so they can take more snapshots of the motion for a given speed CCD.

For the people asking about the amount of data required to store one second worth of video from this device: what’s your estimate for the frequency-dependence of the propagation velocity? Now work out how many km of waveguide would be required to operate the camera for an entire second… Now tell me how many photos they’re actually capable of taking in a single run. My guess is they’re taking tens or hundreds of images per photo run, not 6 million.

The frame rate is just that… a rate. The frame rate isn’t actually a quantity of frames.

Also, I’m sure the bullet (and unspent cartridge!) going through the apple is just some (hopefully cheap) stock footage, not meant to represent this device in any way. At 6 million frames per second, and judging from the scale of the apple, in 5 frames (4 time slices) the bullet goes more than 10 cm, which works out to over 150 km (15 million cm) per second… over 450 times the speed of sound. High-powered military sniper rifles generally fire rounds at a bit under 3 times the speed of sound, and the rifles used for stroboscopic photography generally have muzzle velocities in the neighborhood of the speed of sound. Really, the image is just some computer-generated stock photography, not even a poor CGI simulation of 6 mil. fps. Give the author a break. I imagine s/he doesn’t have more than 15 minutes to devote to finding an image for the sidebar of the story.

By: optical-tech

optical-tech — Fri, 08 May 2009 08:39:44 +0000

Hi,

I sort of understand the idea of different wavelength travelling at different speeds, but there are two question there:
- in the video and in the explanations, it looks as if the wavelength separation occurs _after_ the illumination of the sample, in which case it sorts of misses the point because every wavelength illuminate the sample at the same time.
- How can a single element photodetector produce a 2D image? We’ve got a subject in 3D (two spatial dimensions and a temporal one), and the acquisition is made along only 1D (temporal)

By: MacCaskill

MacCaskill — Mon, 04 May 2009 23:21:41 +0000

Norman Costa asked about the Trinity camera… If I recall correctly, the cameras involved didn’t use conventional mechanical shutters that have to physically open and close that fast. I believe images from the lenses were passed through revolving prism that ‘tracked’ the film as it was swept past at a continuous (and darned high) speed. The film didn’t have to be stopped and restarted as each frame was exposed.
I THINK that’s how they worked. Did this description make sense?
I’m sure there are plenty of sources online that can describe the cameras and methods used at Los Alamos.

Corey Says:
April 29th, 2009 at 7:48 pm
“I just want to say that in the 2nd paragraph 3rd row the word that is used twice”

Corey, was there actually a complete thought you intended to convey? An article about an amazing bit of technology and the only thing you find to say (perhaps, you’re intent’s a bit fuzzy) that you thought you spotted a typo?

By: Nigh

Nigh — Sun, 03 May 2009 22:41:14 +0000

You should do your research before claiming speed records, this camera ‘http://www.itronx.com/DRS_LIGHTNING_ULTRA_8_high-speed_slow-motion_cameras.htm’ can run at 100 million frames/sec & even that is not the fastest. Frame rates at around 500 million/sec have been achieved.

By: Norman Costa

Norman Costa — Sat, 02 May 2009 00:26:40 +0000

I understand the motion camera that took pictures of the Trinity A-Bomb test ran at 10,000 frames per second. Not being an engineer or photographer, I would like to know such a device could manage a shutter speed of that magnitude. I am assuming it was using mechanical or electro-mechanical technology. Was a physical shutter actually cycling through open and close positions 10,000 times each second? And what about the film transport? How can photographic film be propelled at that speed and stay together? Assuming a square 35mm frame, the film would travel 350 meters in one second. If someone could explain I would appreciate it greatly.

Otherwise, I can imagine the latest technology will shed enormous light (if there’s a pun there, so be it) on molecular structures and biological-neurological processes. Imagine a visualization of neural synaptic activities.

By: Lee451

Lee451 — Fri, 01 May 2009 05:14:56 +0000

I think I will wait until there is one on Overstock.com.

By: bpierce

bpierce — Fri, 01 May 2009 01:55:24 +0000

Going off of your math, with 32-bit color, at 6 mega pixels X 6 million pictures i think that would work out to about 130 terabytes per second of raw data. Am I wrong?

By: Clark

Clark — Fri, 01 May 2009 01:19:56 +0000

And I thought that taking nearly 6 Million pixels in a second was doing good! Now just how many pixels is 6 Million pictures times 6 Mega-pixels equal too?

If I add right, it’s 36 to the 12th power, or 36,000,000,000,000 pixels!

By: Josh

Josh — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 19:16:44 +0000

Wait a minute… I declare shenanigans!
Take a look at that photo: the bullet is still in the cartridge!
(Though it looks like the photo is just a representation, why make a bad representation?)

By: TechFresh

TechFresh — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 14:13:53 +0000

Very interesting, but to capture anything more than a brief number of seconds would require huge amounts of fast RAM.

By: Eliza Strickland

Eliza Strickland — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 11:29:58 +0000

Thanks for the catch, Corey. I’ll fix the typo in the quoted text.

By: Karrasko

Karrasko — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 10:38:58 +0000

I already handle a camera that snaps 1 million pictures per second. I can tell you that it’ s really amazing. I use it for impact phenomena.
http://esns.blogspot.com/
http://twitter.com/ESS_BILBAO