SpudFiles

Hi,

I havn't posted on here for a while, but its Pete, the UKSGC founder.

Was just posting as I have some exciting news.

I work in the film industry in the UK, and I was just at a tradeshow in Amsterdam, and whilst there I got talking to a company that make high speed cameras. After showing them clips of my mach1 tennis ball cannon on my iPhone, they amazingly agreed to lend me one of their cameras. We calculated that the framerate required is about 40,000fps, and a shutter speed of 1/50,000th of a second.

This is a new camera, capable of speeds up to 1.4 million frames per second, there are only a few in the world, and it is worth an absolute fortune, so I feel very privileged to be able to use it.

We are also using a 30kw lamp, which is so powerful it can only run for 10 seconds before it melts, and it draws so much energy, it comes with a massive cabinet on wheels, containing loads of capacitors which power the lamp for the 10 second duration that it will run for.

The plan is to get the camera and the lamp setup in the garden, with the tennis ball gun and spend a few hours shooting stuff, and I will arrange a Briggs Beer Canon style montage for it. At these frame rates, I expect some truly amazing images, and I am really looking forward to seeing the way the ball exits the barrel and the way the ball moves through the target. We plan on shooting melons, old computer monitors, etc etc.

The reason I am posting this is to really ask if there is anything you would like to see. Different projectiles, different pressures or targets. The gun only has a tennis ball barrel, but we can put other stuff in there. We will have the camera and lamp for about a day, so will have enough time to try stuff out.

If anyone has any junk that they would like to donate to the cause, then contact me and we can arrange to shoot it under the highspeed camera.


The canon I am using is my massive tennis ball launcher, which chronographed in at just over Mach1 with a standard tennis ball. There was always some dispute over weather this was accurate, so I guess we can find out once and for all, Mythbusters style with a stripey background.









http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpHg3vmesug
Destruction like that in this video is going to be amazing to see so slow.



I cant wait.


8)

Include a 5 foot or longer measure with the 1 foot spots highlighted or if metric the 10 cm marks. To reduce parallax error position it close. This shot below peeled off one of the marks and almost knocked over the tripod.

may I ask what company?
if it is a phantom V12, you are very lucky. Most companies can't even rent those without a long lead time.

It is a Phantom v710. Brand new, saw it up close today for the first time. Its about a week old. Fastest camera ever, 1.4 million FPS max.

Hopefully we will be able to get this camera for the shoot, he seemed unsure about availability in Europe.

If not, we will be using the Phantom v640. They have a whole office full of these cameras, including the newer Miros, and it is likely that we may end up with more than one camera on set on the day.


This camera pisses all over the V12

Hell, ANY highspeed camera for free use is lucky, you have to fish out a wodge of cash to rent those things and a mortgage to buy one.

Try not to kill large swathes of grass with that lamp when you're filming

This is the weirdest thing ever i was just checking out your vids for the first time on youtube today and then you post here
oh yeah and uhum....LUCKY BASTARD....i hope you have fun with that camera and light o' death and we would very much like to see the results

Might want to keep it quiet, companies might be building cannons like that to get free use of such a camera now. God, it's probably cheaper like that.

Congratulations, you might want to keep the light away from the PVC. I can imagine that kind of exposure is no good for it.

Tinfoil it

Fantastic, looking forward to see the footage I would ensure a good mix of frangible objects (garden gnomes, for example ) against hard targets and vice-versa, perhaps a couple of "shotgun" rounds XM1028 style - it would make the classic melon shot more interesting if it was performated by a fistfull of BBs as opposed to a single projectile.

A classic I have seen once but would like to see in high speed is two watermelons 6 inches apart shot with an apple. The impact exploded the first dissipating all the energy while the second was untouched except by some flying shards of watermelon rind.

the classic melon shot more interesting if it was performated by a fistfull of BBs

who needs bbs? fire nails

POLAND_SPUD wrote:who needs bbs? fire nails

This is a serious academic impact test, not a bleedin' Jihad!

(but yes, nails too )

inonickname wrote:Even better, use the government researched, U.S. version of nails

Basically nails with stamped fins, available on eBay

That cannon looks so cute with those wheels.
Oh, I'd like to see a vegetable (possibly frozen) impacting a pumpkin. I need to know how that looks for the pumpkin chunkin demo next year.