|
Introduction
High-speed photography is easy That's one of
the messages of this guidebook. I've
been teaching middle- and high-school students how to take
high-speed photographs since 1984. My guiding principle has been to use
inexpensive and accessible equipment. This lets the students
concentrate on devising ingenious techniques to capture dramatic
photographs.
I've recently started using digital cameras, and that increases
equipment expense. The advantage is that students see their
photos immediately and can make informed decisions about how to make
changes in their experiments.
High-speed photography is educational I've been
teaching for 28 years, primarily at the high-school level, although
I've also taught middle school and university students. My content
area is physics and physical science. I find that the students'
interest perks up whenever I show high-speed photographs or
demonstrate high-speed phenomena that relate to what I'm teaching.
Some students have pursued extended research projects on particular
phenomena. High-speed tools provide an exciting way to learn about
the everyday environment that we don't normally see.
High-speed photography is rewarding There's
great satisfaction in photographing phenomena that are normally
invisible. Besides revealing things that you've never seen before,
you may discover something that no one has seen before. In
addition to the intrinsic rewards, there are more tangible ones. For
example, photographs taken by my students have earned photographic
and scientific awards, have been exhibited in art galleries and
science centers, and have been published in journals, textbooks, and
electronic media.
Know the basics When I teach high-speed
photography, I usually start with the basics of taking pictures.
That includes handling and focusing a camera, determining shutter
speed and aperture combinations, and composing the photograph. This
guidebook only covers those topics as they directly relate to taking
high-speed photographs. Therefore, some knowledge of photography
fundamentals is assumed. Having a black-and-white darkroom is also
helpful, especially if you want your students to have quick
turnaround on seeing the results of their photographic
projects. If you use digital cameras and computers for image
processing, the turnaround is even quicker.
A little bit of electronics goes a long way
I didn't know much electronics when I built my first sound trigger.
You don't need to know much either to put together the circuits
needed to trigger your flash unit. In the Tools
section of this web site, you'll find all the basic circuit diagrams
with parts lists and sources. If you know how to read circuit
diagrams and have done some soldering and used a circuit breadboard,
you can easily handle the electronics. If not, you can get started
with a how to book from your local electronics store. If
you'd rather not do the electronics, you can purchase excellent
ready-made triggers from companies that specialize in such things.
But be prepared to spend $500 or more rather than the $5 for a
do-it-yourself trigger.
Fancy equipment not needed Some people think
that special cameras are needed to capture high-speed action. While
that's one way to do it, another way is to use a short burst of
light from a flash unit. This is the method used for all the
activities in this guidebook. For that method, four main components
are needed: 1) a manual camera, 2) film, 3) an automatic flash unit,
4) a trigger. Here's more information
these components.
Back to top
|
