Can I get this action to freeze?
Ok, here is the setup:
Every year the middle school I work for has an event called "Rocket Day". The day's activities are based on the principles that they have learned in their physical science classes. The object is for students to design and launch a bottle rocket that has been designed by the student to have good flight characteristics (ie. low wind resistance, properly balanced with center of gravity behind the center of pressure, etc.) These rockets are built out of 2 liter soda bottles and cardboard. We partially fill them with water (which is another variable the student is supposed to work out to get maximum thrust) pump them up to about 100 psi and fire them off. When they fire them, they go off like a rocket - no pun intended. Ok, well maybe it was intended. :rofl This year we are designing a launch pad that will allow the students to safely fire their own rockets (instead of having the staff do it) and I'd love to be able to get really crisp pictures.
So here is the question: I'm already shooting at 1/8000th and that is the best my camera can do. Is there a flash technique or other technique that will freeze the action? This all takes place outside in the noon day sun.
Here are a couple of examples from last year. It is getting sorta close but has a ways to go as you can see to get it sharp.
1)
2)
Every year the middle school I work for has an event called "Rocket Day". The day's activities are based on the principles that they have learned in their physical science classes. The object is for students to design and launch a bottle rocket that has been designed by the student to have good flight characteristics (ie. low wind resistance, properly balanced with center of gravity behind the center of pressure, etc.) These rockets are built out of 2 liter soda bottles and cardboard. We partially fill them with water (which is another variable the student is supposed to work out to get maximum thrust) pump them up to about 100 psi and fire them off. When they fire them, they go off like a rocket - no pun intended. Ok, well maybe it was intended. :rofl This year we are designing a launch pad that will allow the students to safely fire their own rockets (instead of having the staff do it) and I'd love to be able to get really crisp pictures.
So here is the question: I'm already shooting at 1/8000th and that is the best my camera can do. Is there a flash technique or other technique that will freeze the action? This all takes place outside in the noon day sun.
Here are a couple of examples from last year. It is getting sorta close but has a ways to go as you can see to get it sharp.
1)
2)
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If you have bright sunlight conditions an advanced digicam, which has an "electronic shutter", can actually stop motion much better. (Casio ZR100/EXILIM EX-ZR100 for example.)
Using a flash can help if you can also reduce the effects of available light. Use a deep ND filter and then add some very high-speed and powerful electronic flash to overpower the sunlight and add enough light to provide proper illumination. Some Elinchrom studio flashes can have very short flash durations. (Elinchrom Quadra pack, B socket, A series "Action" head, up to 1/6000th. By comparison a speedlight/speedlite typically has flash durations of around 1/600th or so at full pop, although reduced power settings will allow shorter durations.) Alien Bee B400 monolights will also provide 1/6000th at full pop (but in sunlight it takes a bunch of them to overpower the sunlight.)
*For an explanation of why focal plane shutters are not good at stopping motion see this link:
http://www.wrotniak.net/photo/tech/fp-shutter.html
For a good discussion about how to use Alien Bee flashes to stop motion with focal plane shutters see this:
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=128144
... particularly:
http://www.dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=1095647&postcount=17
http://www.dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=1095739&postcount=19
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Thanks again Ziggy. I was afraid the answer might be something like that. I can sync my SB900's at 1/500s using pocket wizards, but I'm thinking 2 of them even at full power (1/880s duration) might not be hot enough to overpower the mid day sun in the high desert. And I'm really thinking I'll need 2 frames to catch the action (that is at most as long as the rocket is in the frame) as the timing is soooooo difficult, and that means half power on the flashes. The hard part is testing it before we are actually doing it so as not to miss any of the kids firing their rockets. Ill try to rig something up with an air compressor and a hose and see what happens.