The Official High-Speed Camera Thread

[jackssmirkingrevenge]

Sweet, what fps?

[Insomniac]

1000, I figured anything lower wouldn't catch it. Hence the pitiful resolution.

EDIT: Hmm... I should have put a scale behind it, it would be interesting to see how fast those little flecks of aluminium foil were travelling. Maybe next time, the noise was starting to get on dad's nerves.

[jrrdw]

the noise was starting to get on dad's nerves.

JR. TAKE THAT SHIT OUTSIDE AND BLOW IT UP! TURN DOWN THAT MUSIC!

[Insomniac]

So I asked one of our photographers what our current cameras were capable of. They can be configured for all sorts of frame rates and resolutions, of course, but some interesting answers....

Maximum frame rate at full resolution (1024x1024 pixels) with 24-bit color images. 7000 fps.

Maximum frame rate, period: 1.4 Mfps (but resolution is like 64x64).


The good news, though... It wasn't THAT long ago when 640x480 @ 1000 fps was kick ass even by professional standards. As such.... I imagine it won't be THAT long before similar rates are available at the consumer level.

Hopefully Casio will keep developing their high-speed line, because at the moment, they are the only manufactuer making cameras with these capabilities. Sure, there are a few expensive camcorders that can do short bursts of slow motion, but I don't think any other consumer cameras have reached the 1000fps mark.

If only some other camera manufactures would start making some high-speed models themselves, it might help fuel some competition and push the technology foward a bit more quickly. Just look at what happened with megapixels... only a few short years ago 3-5mp was the standard for compact cameras... now 10-12mp sensors are very common on compacts, and arn't too expensive either.

[D_Hall]

now 10-12mp sensors are very common on compacts, and arn't too expensive either.

Although that's not necessarily a good thing. Megapixels became a marketing tool and everybody wants more. Problem is that with cheap glass, infinite pixels won't give you a better picture simply because the limiting factor on the quality of your image is the lens itself; not the sensor. Given the quality of the typical compact camera, there really is no reason to have 10 Mp. But... Having them means you also have to have the large file sizes that go with them.

[rp181]

I have a 10MP compact, And the quality is fine, its great for large images/zooming/cropping. Sure the quality is a little worse, but its much better than blowing up a 640x480 to 10MP.

[Insomniac]

now 10-12mp sensors are very common on compacts, and arn't too expensive either.

Although that's not necessarily a good thing. Megapixels became a marketing tool and everybody wants more. Problem is that with cheap glass, infinite pixels won't give you a better picture simply because the limiting factor on the quality of your image is the lens itself; not the sensor. Given the quality of the typical compact camera, there really is no reason to have 10 Mp. But... Having them means you also have to have the large file sizes that go with them.

Not to mention the fact that while the megapixel number has been steadily rising (as you said, it became a marketing tool), the physical size of the sensors has stayed pretty much the same. So the 12mp sensors in most compacts are very cramped electronics-wise, resulting in much more noise than previous sensors. I'd be happier with an 8 Mp sensor with low noise, than a 12 one which is full of it.

[jackssmirkingrevenge]

Do we really need more megapixels? Certainly not for taking photos of people at social events, we can already see bacteria having idle chit-chat and playing tennis on their faces, is it really necessary to document public inebriation in so much detail?

Yes, I hate facebook

[jor2daje]

Just thought Id throw my latest movie up, theres a couple of repeats but I wanted all my good vids in one place. Also should apologize for it being so long.
[youtube][/youtube]

On the vortex block front I may be able to do it this weekend but Ive also got a pretty neat gatling desktop gun in the works

[Insomniac]

Very nice! I particularly like the smoke ring coming off the lighter, and the bubble burst. I never bothered trying bubbles because I thought they would burst too quickly for these cameras to catch. Turns out I'm wrong, and it doesn't annoy me in the slightest

[D_Hall]

I have a 10MP compact, And the quality is fine, its great for large images/zooming/cropping. Sure the quality is a little worse, but its much better than blowing up a 640x480 to 10MP.

Agree that 10 MP is better than 0.3 MP (640x480), but there comes a time when more pixels does NOT yield a better picture. It yields a larger file; nothing more. Why? Because the lens is your limiting factor. Where that limit is depends on your camera, but for most non-professional-level cameras it's under 10 MP. Probably more like 6-8 MP.

Put it this way.... I've got an old 6 MP Rebel (DSLR). I've blown up pictures from it to 30" x 20" (or somewhere around there). Know what? 6 MP does just fine even at that size!

[Insomniac]

I suppose one nice thing about high megapixel cameras are that when you crop a huge portion of the image, while you lose a lot of quality due to the shortcomings of the lens, the imperfections look a lot more 'organic' than the imperfections caused by you running out of pixels. So even though the image won't look great, it won't have that horrible blockyness about it that some cropped images have. (Which IMHO looks a lot worse than a simple loss of detail)

A good example of what I mean is this image I took of a gecko... Due to lighting and the fact the gecko would run if I got too close, I had to crop most of this image away... detail starts to suffer, but it's still not pixelated. (Taken on my EX-FC100, it's got a 9.1mp sensor if I remember correctly)




Though I do agree that 6mp is fine for almost any task... I'd rather have a 6mp sensor that gives a great, crisp image, than a 12mp one that gives a noisy, muddy looking image.

[Insomniac]

Just filmed some water filled beer bottles being smashed by hitting the top really hard. In the second vid you can see the cavitation near the bottom right before it breaks. Quality is a bit lacking as it's late afternoon here and the light is no good.

[youtube][/youtube]

[youtube][/youtube]

[jackssmirkingrevenge]

Nice I should FINALLY be picking up my camera this afternoon, can't wait!

[Insomniac]

Awesome! I'd been wondering when customs was finally gonna stop playing with it and let you have a go

Did you get a spare battery/decent memory card for it? With 2 batteries I have never had both go flat on me at the same time, and they don't take long to charge. Very annoying to have your camera and everything else all set up, and then have the battery die...