High speed cameras

Jason Sanders

Jason Sanders

Well-known member
Hello

Does anyone have any experience with high speed cameras
(1000fps) like the Phantom? Im just starting to do some research on them. Would like to use a camera like for my next short.



thanks
Jason
 
Hi Jason,

Ive used the Phantom 2k a few times. Its a very nice camera, but it costs a LOT. if your going to hire one, (in the UK) expect to pay abot £2500 - 3000 a day.

You need to hire:

Phantom body
cinemag (video storage)
lenses
legs and head
power system
compter system (usualy a macbook pro and a lot of external raid drives)
external monitor
HD viewfinder
all the connecting cables and extra acessories

AND you need an operator, as they wont hire the phantom out on its own.

Also they usualy just give you the video files in phantom format, and you have to have the phantom software to turn it into a mov to edit with. This costs obviously. You can have the hire company convert your files into whatever type of video you choose, but this is expensive, my contact at a london hire company charges about £600 to turn a days rushes into a 1080p mov file.

You could look at maybe the older phantom or the photron ones.

Its an expensive business but great if you can pull it off.


Also bear in mind you need a lot of light for any highspeed camera, about 5k minimum, cant use certain types of light sources caus they flicker and the HSC sees them. Have to use HMI i think....

Whenever ive used them its been outside so its not usually a problem.
 
Thanks for all the info, really informative. I had no idea it costs that much. Thats out of my budget. Maybe Ill look into renting a Red, least it does 120fps.

Jason
 
the Sony Z7 does 200fps.

There are other systems out there that are chaper, but they are more geared towards the industrial side of video. High speed cameras are used a lot in factories to identify faults with the machines (when they run so fast you cant see the problem normally) These cameras (like the Photron Fastcam's) output an image that usualy has FPS, apature, date etc burnt into it. no good for a music video, but great for industrial research.

Its mainly just the Phantom and P+S techhnik Weisscam thats designed to shoot overcranked for video.
 
Also dont forget red only does 120fps at 2k which is cropped sensor, so you need to double your focal distances, for example a 50mm lens suddenly becomes a 100mm equiv lens when your using 120fps in 2k cropped sensor.
 
Your sure a wealth of information. Thanks. I will look into the sony z7 and cheaper solutions. I guess I dont need somthing quite that fast. Im going to film a shoot out scene and wanted to do something in slow-mo.
 
f150trk21 said:
Your sure a wealth of information. Thanks. I will look into the sony z7 and cheaper solutions. I guess I dont need somthing quite that fast. Im going to film a shoot out scene and wanted to do something in slow-mo.
Click to expand...


I've not tested this feature out, but I bought a Sony SR11 a month ago, and one of the claims is that it will do up to 240 fps, for some 'brief' amount of time, something like 10 to 20 seconds.

I don't know if that is too short of a time, or whether at a lower rate the max capture time is lengthened.
 
As far as im aware, the sony cameras with this feature (think its called smoothcam(?)) will record for three seconds then play back over 12 seconds.
 
I played with the V1u's smoothcam when it was announced at NAB. Not impressed, as the resolution sucked (I'm not sure if this has been fixed or not). I haven't touched the Z7, the 200fps thing sounds impressive (wonder what the facts are, though).

You may be better off filming in 60i and conforming to 24p. Play with it, see if it's slo-mo enough for you. http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=86892
 
The Z7 will shoot 200fps but only to its flash module thing, and I think it will only do it in DV, not HDV.
 
Does anyone know which video cameras are available that can shoot 20,000 FPS? I am interested in filming bullets piercing objects for a project. I saw a great gun show on the History Channel where they used this camera but I have no idea what it was.

I have used the Phantom but 1,000 fps is nothing for slowing down bullets and explosions.

Dan
 
Hi,

No camera will shoot 20,000fs at 2k, but the Phantom (and the new Phantom65) will take any frame rate you like, it can do 20,000fps easily. You just have to forefit resolution. If you put it in SD and capture a standard definition frame, you can up the frame rate. You can catch a bullet with the phantom no problem.

Photron Ultima will do very high frame rates, but its an industrial camera.

Weve used 1000fps for filming exploding vans, its fine for explosions, but not good for bullets. We are using phantom shortly to capture a tennis ball traveling at mach1. Should be cool.
 
The show I watched on History Channel was in Hi-Def and the shots looked spectacular in HD, wonder if they up converted to HD in order to get that frame rate? The VO made a point repeatedly of saying that "these shots were photographed at 20,000 fps" and they looked it. I will talk to Abel (they rent the Phantom) to see what they recommend for this challenge.

The one time we used the Phantom, we were recording a mere 500 fps for a typewriter key in motion.

Interesting, thanks.

Dan
 
puredrifting said:
The show I watched on History Channel was in Hi-Def and the shots looked spectacular in HD, wonder if they up converted to HD in order to get that frame rate? The VO made a point repeatedly of saying that "these shots were photographed at 20,000 fps" and they looked it. I will talk to Abel (they rent the Phantom) to see what they recommend for this challenge.

The one time we used the Phantom, we were recording a mere 500 fps for a typewriter key in motion.

Interesting, thanks.

Dan
Click to expand...


Here's a description of what someone did for a 'Linconln Assassination' reenactment of the bullet's path.

It was done apparently in 1999, so, while perhaps the use of film is no longer needed, the interesting part is how they 'faked' the gunshot, using a falling 8x model of the bullet, and a pretty detail description of the calculations required, and lighting to capture the bullet in transit.

Muybridge eat your heart out...

Shooting Lincoln by James Callanan


This may help people who want to get an effect, but can't get a camera that has the speed, to do it with the 'real' items... remember even in porn 'reality' is faked...
 
One suggestion -- unless you enjoy getting spam emails, never ever ever put your email address in a post on a public forum. And NEVER use it as your screenname. That's just asking for trouble.

Carry on!
 
chapelgrovefilms said:
One suggestion -- unless you enjoy getting spam emails, never ever ever put your email address in a post on a public forum. And NEVER use it as your screenname. That's just asking for trouble.

Carry on!
Click to expand...

In the 30 or so years of being on USENET, various 'bizarre' email lists, and of course posting to various forums, in a couple of languages, has not garnered me all that much spam...

But, heck, if selling my name to some spammer gets you your seed money for your film...
What can I say...
 
j1clark@ucsd.edu said:
In the 30 or so years of being on USENET, various 'bizarre' email lists, and of course posting to various forums, in a couple of languages, has not garnered me all that much spam...

But, heck, if selling my name to some spammer gets you your seed money for your film...
What can I say...
Click to expand...

I doubt anybody here would sell an email address to a spammer. But spammers use various bots to traverse the web searching for forums like this, in an effort to find email addresses to add to their collection. You've been amazingly lucky! Hope that keeps up.

:)
 
hoarp001 said:
How can you have been on any email list for 30 years?!
Click to expand...


Before time began, there was USENET..., which was a loosely connected, via modems, collection of unix systems admins who would give lowly mortals a uucp feed via a dial up modem... uucp being a transport mechanism of unix from one system to another... so before USENET there was just uucp... and for some universities there was ARPANET... USELESS NET NEWS (USENET) begain about 1979, I tuned in around 1980, to various news groups. I had a local friend who worked as a sysop for a certain 'defense related contractor', who gave me a uucp feed... so I could get USENET news at home via modem, rather than having to go to the university computer center...

I flunked my first programming course, FORTRAN, based on punchcards and an IBM 360, in 1974... in 1978 the university got Video Display Terminals (as opposed to noise TELETYPE machines...) and a 'timesharing' access to a computer for students... at... hold your hats... 110 and 300 baud... and that was one room over from the Computer Center... with such interactivity I didn't have a problem writing programs, getting the compiler to 'instantly' give error messages, ratherr than a 5 inch stack of output when the JCL on the card deck was screwed up... and then with a line by line editor, one could correct said errors, and resubmit within, gosh... minutes... in some cases...

Some of the image processing things I did in the early 80's was done on equipment that cost 100's of thousands of dollars, that I had to write specialized drivers for... now, FC, AE, even iMovie... do far more, faster, and obviously for a lot, lot less...
 
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