The Scope of High-Speed Photography

Abstract

Picture exposure time and frame repetition rate are the two fundamental parameters which define most high-speed systems. The various light sources, continuous and those of short duration are reviewed. Air sparks and xenon filled gas tubes have the advantage of short durations of a few microseconds and can be used as either single flashes or in multiple form.

Considerable diversity of cameras exist. They fall into the two categories of those that form normal and separate Images or those in which the photographic image is “dissected” by the taking mechanism and then re-constructed afterwards by optical means. Examples of both types are given.

Film drum cameras provide a simple and cheaper technique when the event lasts for a reasonably short time. Electro optical shutters are beginning to be widely employed. In aero-dynamic flow research, many of these methods are combined with Schlieren systems.

Applications of the methods have been made to zoological animal motion studies and to the biological sciences for living material under the microscope. The field of application has been widest in the physical and engineering sciences. Military applications in connection with projectile trajectories, impact studies and explosions in air and underwater have been the spur to much research and development of quipment.