[www.telegraph.co.uk]

When I say we, I kinda mean you, or Gary, or Jim, or....someone other than me!!!!

But those pics are special

Cheers

Neil

Very interesting . . . at first I thought he was just using an $80k+ industrial camera, but I clicked into the slideshow and apparently he built his own 1/1,000,000th second flash trigger using a laser with a variable delay -- and a plain old Nikon DSLR like I have! When the pellet breaks the laser, it triggers the flash (this can only be done in a darkroom, so no bigbore I guess). I'm Googling now . . . apparently he puuled the design from MAKE magazine.

Here's another gallery . . . more details here.

-- Jim

Found the plans for the strobe controller here . . . or you can buy the kit for $125. I guess you COULD use it for bigbore if you shot at night and shielded the camera . . . hmmmmmm. Apparently the unit can be triggered by either light or sound, and you can daisy-chain DJ-type strobes together together to give yourself more light (kinda like Winston Link's famous nighttime photos of the steam locomotives of the 1950s). The thing to remember is that the kit isn't connected to the camera at all . . . you set the shutter to be open for a long time (at least 3 or 4 seconds, which is why it has to be dark), open it, trigger the strobe(s) using the controller, close the shutter, and voila! It's actually the very brief flash of light which makes the stop-action effect, not the camera's shutter.

Thanks guys for the heads-up . . . this one might be right down my alley! I'd love to capture the instant where one of Jerry's Shrikes is starting to fragment off of the face of Gary's steel groundhogs using my camera. Perhaps a neat nighttime activity at a future Barnes shoot as well?

-- Jim



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/27/2009 12:05PM by Jim.

OK ... I missed the part where you "pull the trigger on the gun". haha. Is it just me ... or .... does this sound complicated to anybody else?

So, we just need to be out at the range, on a night with absolutely no moon. Aim a big bore and lock it down in an immovable vise (so nothing moves when you turn out the lights), and try not to shoot each other in the pitch darkness. heheh. Be neat if you could pull it all off.

Now Neil, since Jim's explained it all so that a first grader could understand it ... .... what do you need from us? hehhehe

Gary

The rifle can move as much as you want . . . you'll have your camera and strobes set up around the target. You can have a little light, just not a lot . . . so a moonless night is best. The controller triggers the flash by either light (the slug breaking the laser beam) or sound (the muzzle report). Both are adjustable. It also has adjustable "delay" after the event which triggers it, so you can adjust the sync. You'll have to manually focus the camera on the target because its AF system won't be fast enough to work on a 1/1,000,000th second flash. It's probably easiest to trigger by sound, as shooting a slug across a laser beam at distance to trigger the flash might be tricky.

The hardest part, once again, is how to shield the camera for close-up shots. You can either hide it behind a piece of clear plexiglas (which will interfere with image quality) or setup at a "safe" distance with a telephoto lens zoomed all the way in.

-- Jim

Ah ... the Old "Laser and the Nikon" trick! I thought so.

I've got a box of lasers and Nikons here .... somewhere ..........

Gary



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/27/2009 08:52PM by barnespneumatic.

[www.telegraph.co.uk]

Theres a good few photos, buttons to the right of picture to scroll through.
I like the way he uses a laser switch just behind the target to activate the camera.

Neil,
I agree, we have to try this! And by "we" I also mean Jim or Gary or you!

Those are some fantastic photographs.

Waddaya draggin' ME into this for???

I've got guns to make. Besides ... I don't want to stand there in the dark with lasers zapping stuff. It doesn't sound safe.



I'll be in the shop.



Gary

Sounds like Jim has it all in hand!

Now, to find a razor blade big enough to slice one of Gary's slugs in half....... Jerry, a nicely coloured Raptor would look impressive carved in two!

One of my favourites is #13, the clear Christmas ornament filled with water = pure hydrostatic shock

Jim, you might need to borrow Gary's muzzler to keep the noise down

OK, I think I have everyone organised.
Hehehehe.

Neil

Glad you are happy Neil.

Now ... if I knew someone that loved photography stuff (like Jim for instance) .... who had a basement the size of Penn Station (like Jim for instance) .... and who had ..... oh ... say .... a Scout or a Delta 45 ....

Gary

I'm afraid of the dark ....

Didn't I read somewhere that you're not supposed to shoot big bores into a pellet trap next to the washing machine?

Besides, that sounds like a job for a high gloss blued shrouded Appaloosa.

-- Jim

Definitely not by the washing machine - right.

But now ... 50-60 yards back into the darker voids of the basement might be OK.

Neil: this guy Alan Sailer has already done it. Follow this link to a pic of a .177 diablo split in half with a razor blade.

We gotta try this!

-- Jim

Soooo.... moonless night, trucklload of equipment, big bore air guns..... hwo long before we get arrested? hehehe

way cool images.

Yes ... I hadn't seen the rest of the pics. They are quite impressive. The laser beam trigger seems like it would be foolproof. The event triggers the flash ... rather than trying to time the velocity of the pellet - speed of sound - distance to target ... etc. Did I miss any of that information: are the laser triggers real expensive?

Gary

Nope. If you don't use the built-in mic on the controller, you can simply aim a cheap laser pointer into the "eye" of its photodetector. Just like a chrony, the passing of the slug is enough to trigger the "flash" event (subject to any delay you choose to add, of course).

You know what they say: "Do not look directly into laser with remaining eye."

Ain't technology great?

-- Jim



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/27/2009 07:53PM by Jim.

Yep - have to be careful.

I went to dinner at show with a group of people once. We had to wait in a lobby to be seated. One fella in the group was fascinated by pocket lasers. This was forever ago. The newer green lasers (far more powerful) had just come out ... so he said. Well, the lobby had mirrors all around. I caught a blast of his new toy off a mirror ... bothered me all night.

Gary

Oh THANKS! So ... now it's all I can think about ....

So ... at about 800 fps, how far does the slug travel in one millionth of a second ...?

Gary

That would be 0.0008 feet, or .0096 inches. A little less than a hundredth of an inch (or 0.24384 millimeters for our metric-minded folks).

-- Jim



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/27/2009 11:52PM by Jim.

Perfect ... so, that's such a small distance, you could put the laser immediately behind the subject ... still catch all the action and the bullet.

So, now "ALL" you need is a 1/1,000,000th second strobe, that doesn't have any dwell time!



Gary

I wonder how much blur would be introduced by using a regular hi-speed flash (like a Nikon speedlight) at that's on for 20 microseconds? The same projectile would travel .192" -- about two tenths of an inch -- while the flash is illuminated. You'd see some blur for sure on the actual slug, but debris etc. moving away from the POI wouldn't be traveling as fast.

-- Jim

Probably be a neat effect. A sort of "still in motion".

Seems there would be some group of people that were nuts over this stuff. Has to be a forum or something, where the members make/sell this sort of stuff. We shouldn't have to start at the beginning to re-create it.

What do you think?

So ... you readers. We need a contact for a 1/1,000,000th sec. flash. Surely, there's a group of guys that do this all the time.

Gary

From the man who has it all figured out.

"The shooting is stressful. It takes time to set up the shot and WHAM, it's all over. You may or may not have got a good picture and now there is a mess on your setup, your camera, the garage"

That's how we all feel about getting the pics.

It doesn't sound like he is using telephoto lens or Plexiglass. Sure bet the mess will be bigger with melons and big bores!

Kent

I don't think the neat thing about the pictures is the size of the projectile. The pictures are great because of the use of color. The pellet creates something that lasts but an instant and adds that dimension but the pictures are good because of the composition. I don't think more than a couple shots of melons exploding would remain interesting. This could be a very expensive set-up for mere moments of entertainment. Then again, maybe there's a big bore photo artist about to be discovered.

Thanks for the link, those were some great photos!

As an aside, I imagine that just a regular sheet of window glass would be an effective splatter shield unless you were shooting at steel targets, and perhaps even then some tempered sliding-glass-door type glass would probably suffice. It doesn't have to be on a moonless night either, just a dark area in the immediate vicinity of the target. A framed box of black plastic sheeting would probably do just fine as long as it wasn't in full daylight. It might be even easier to fabricate a "shooting tunnel" out of some large-diameter ABS sewer pipe or a length of black plastic or steel culvert. The depth of focus is pretty tight and the target area quite small, you're not looking at a huge facility there. I'd bet that the area in Sailer's viewfinder is less than a foot square, perhaps much less.

It would probably be a good idea to make it so that you can hose it out easily, though.

I think the razorblade "Split" is a Photoshop job.

Curious, why do you think that?

Gary

Gary,

I found it hard to believe the pellet would have cut that clean, flew that straight after being cut, it didn't nick the blade.

This was posted on the yellow to which Adam responded with this link that seems more like what I would suspect should happen:
[s380.photobucket.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/28/2009 10:24PM by Bigbore.

In the video ... other than the fact that the guy missed the first time, I suspect you are meaning that the halves seperate and go into the paper backer askew, some unknown distance behind the blade.

Consider that the pellet, in the still shot, had barely cleared the blade width itself. The halves had hardly just parted. You see the pellet is the same type as in the other photos. Also, the pellet has the rifling marks on it. And, most important, you see a bit of lead swarf, in line with the pellet's flight, captured along the step where the blade backer is pinched around the blade. That was sheared off of the split pellet's head, as it skimmed along the blade width.

Also, my dear Watson ... the blade in the video link you provided is the replacement blade for a utility knife. It's 2-3 times as thick as the other, and thus the blade bevel's angle is greater. The one in the org. still pic is a single edged razor blade, extremely thin and sharp, and thus would not deflect the parted halves radically.

I humbly submit that I think it's real.

Gary

Makes sense.

I'm with you Bigbore, looks "shopped" to me. No detail on the split half, no reflection either. It looks like a shadow of a pellet but there are no other shadows thrown except the razor blade on the vice. Zero deformation of the face of the pellet?

Say it ain't so...

Kent

Kent,

I don't know for sure but I would have expected a nick on the blade and some sort of tumbling but it's flying true.. Also, when I enlarged the pellet to grab it out of the picture for my picture it had white pixelation around the edge. Don't know for sure but I suspect everything that seems TOO perfect.

I do have to admit Adam's recovered pellets ARE consistant with the photo in question and the blade isn't nicked although as Gary pointed out it's a much strong blade; still.......

[s380.photobucket.com]

I've captured this 32 cal buckshot at maximum penetration. The ball rotates as it strikes the target with the resulting splash forming. You can see the rifling on the ball.! This was shot at 20 yards with Kelli's Victory in pistol format.

How's it look.

Tomorrow I'll be shooting the 58 Carnivore for pics.

Kent

Photoshop'ed, EVERYTHING IS PHOTOSHOP'ED!

Kool DUDE, I love the reflection in the center.

Nope, not Photoshopped!!! That's the rifling on the ball. The ball rotated as it struck and therefore the rifling is now running from pole to pole if you will. Everything in the post is true.

Kent

Kent,

I was kidding.

I don't think you would trick your buds.

Lon



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/29/2009 02:30PM by Bigbore.

You would of thought that the pellet halves would be showing some sort of tumbling, even so soon after hitting the razorblade.
But then again, it was published in the Daily Telegraph, so ergo must be true

"You would of thought that the pellet halves would be showing some sort of tumbling"

I agree. The photo was taken close to the point of seperation but it is flying perfectly for having just been halved.

I don't know about the razor blade photo but how'd you sharpen a banana?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/29/2009 02:58PM by Jerry.

Seems this thread has found interest for everyone. I'll jump back into the fray.

Purely from a position of logic, let me ask you why the guy would fake a picture, that he's obviously demonstrated that he could capture?

The miracle is stopping the action with a high rez. color picture, as in all of the other shots. The pellet is clearly shown in the other shots as well. There's absolutely no doubt that you can hit the edge of a blade with a pellet - and that it will split ... it's been done thousands of times. The blade edge is never so strong as straight on, nearly 3/4" in thickness. The pellet is only revolving one turn for every 16" of travel forward. (1-16 Twist rate normal for airguns). That means, over the length of this picture, it would essentially not rotate at all.

So ... with the technology in place to capture what is clearly possible ... why fake it? He'd have had to hit the blade edge once in a dozen trys. If he'd captured a split, with the halves spinning wildly away, I think that would have been even more dramatic (artistically). So, seems to me the only part of the equation that has stuck out in all your minds, is why it would have been important enough to the artist to fake, that the halves fly on straight?

Just joining the conversation.



Gary

Gary,

It's going to be spinning quicker than that I think:
[accurateshooter.wordpress.com]

Having said that you ARE convincing me.

The only thing an artist stands to gain is a great picture, the pellet is the focus of that particular shot unlike objects being detroyed in the others. Like "fixing" skin flaws on a model on the cover of a magazine, image tools are part of the trade so the artist may not consider it "faking", just "touching up".

I'm not trying to make a big deal out of the photo or the possibility of the image being enhanched. I looked at it and it didn't "feel" right so i'm questioning it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/29/2009 05:11PM by Bigbore.

Hi Lon,

The guy didn't finish the equation to tell you the part of the question we are talking about. Here's the example you directed me to. And, of course, it's correct ... as far as it goes. Here's the copy:

Quick Version: MV X 720/Twist Rate = RPM

Example One: In a 1:12? twist barrel the bullet will make one complete revolution for every 12? (or 1 foot) it travels through the bore. This makes the RPM calculation very easy. With a velocity of 3000 feet per second (FPS), in a 1:12? twist barrel, the bullet will spin 3000 revolutions per SECOND (because it is traveling exactly one foot, and thereby making one complete revolution, in 1/3000 of a second). To convert to RPM, simply multiply by 60 since there are 60 seconds in a minute. Thus, at 3000 FPS, a bullet will be spinning at 3000 x 60, or 180,000 RPM, when it leaves the barrel.

However; the abstract impression is messing up timing and distance.

What the guy didn't finish ... as relates to us is this: Take your 3,000 fps velocity. 3,000 feet. Now ... even in 100 yards, there is ONLY 300 feet. Your bullet, at 3,000 fps, only takes 1/10th of a second, to go those 300 feet. 1/10 of a second divided into your 3,000 rotations per second, gives you 300 revolutions in the 1/10th of a second it takes to travel 300 feet. That's back to the 1 turn in 12" of forward travel. Your 1:12" barrel twist in the example means the bullet only fully rotates 300 times, in 300 feet. 1 turn in 12" travel. So ... that's actually 1/12th of a turn in one inch of travel. 1/24th of a rotation in 1/2" of forward travel.

180,000 rpms is screaming, in an air drill. But, the bullet doesn't exit the barrel, and then sit there, still in space, and spin. And no bullet flies for a minute. It wouldn't matter anyway, if it did ... the bullet still only rotates at the twist rate of the barrel.

When this guy is talking about speeding up the rotation of the bullet ... he's talking about making it turn 150 times in 50 yards ... or maybe 225 times in 50 yards (1:8 twist rate). It's possible the guy quoted above, doesn't even realize that.

It's not like introducing an air drill, who's burr is turning 180,000 rpms, into the edge of a stationary razor blade. The photo artist in question, was undoubtedly using a 1/16 twist normal pellet gun barrel. That means the pellet would rotate 112.5 times in 50 yards. That's 1/16th of a turn per inch of forward travel. That's 1/32nd of a turn in 1/2" of forward travel. We're back to the fact that "relatively speaking", the pellet was barely rotating at all, when it hit the razor blade.

Gary



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/29/2009 06:49PM by barnespneumatic.

Gary,

I did run some numers but I was mistaken, I grossly miscalculated the revolutions per foot.

Hi Lon,

Just a friendly discussion. Enjoyable opportunity to exercise the little grey cells. Time travel always fools ya.

Gary

Jerry,

I didn't sharpen the banana silly, I selected a sharp one to begin with.

Lon

Clever.



Gary

I took a look at the original photo and I don't think it has been faked. There are lighter pixels around the pellet but there are lighter pixels on the back edge of the blade as well. I think that is a by product of the lighting and photo gear. Also, the edges around the pellet don't show any of the straight lines one usually finds when they look at a assembled image. Even the forward streaking of the highlight on the pellet has been preserved where Lon's cut and past cut it off and created a nice straight line and a few perfectly right angles...

Jerry,

So you think he faked the blade too?

OK, OK!

Jerry,

How do we know this is really LON posting all this fake dialog?

It could be a fake Lon, and the banana is real !!

Gary

I hope after all this discussion you guys take the time to stop and smell the roses.



Have you ever seen anything so "green"? A flower made from recycled lead slugs. I think I'll export them to China to help with the hazardous trade deficit.

Kent

Brilliant!

Great idea Kent. I hear the great state of California has billions in stimulus money for stuff like this these days. This "eco-art" would look really nice arranged around condor nests and hippy communes, for example. Excellent business plan!

-- Jim



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/30/2009 01:01PM by Jim.

Hi Kent,

What a fab business idea. You could send those to Jerry for coloration. Several different colors, arranged in a bouquet, would be a wonderful present for an airgunner's wife! There's been a real lack of "giving back" to the longsuffering wives and family of airgunners. THIS could be BIG!

Oh, THAT'S going to cost you!

Everything does .....