Target practice is another use for empty bottles as long as the shards are contained. This bottle was shot with a .22 long rifle cartridge traveling at approx. 1,000 feet per second. This experiment was done safely in a very controlled environment. Comments and Criticism always appreciated.
So, travelling about 1 foot per millisecond, and the shutter response time of your 350D is, what, maybe 80ms? So you rigged an infrared trigger 80 feet from the bottle, in your giant basement, and...?
Oh wait, of course, shutter open on bulb, time a flash with a sonic trigger...
The set up was a Vivitar 283 flash rewired to shoot at the shortest duration (reportedly around 1/40,000 sec). The flash was triggered by a switch made of 2 pieces of aluminum foil separated by rubber tape placed around 8" from the bottle. The camera was set at 1 second shutter, f/3.5, ISO 100.
All you need is a cigar, and you'd have my favorite Federal Department;
Alcohol
Tobacco &
Firearms
I'd love to hear more about the set-up. Long live the Viv 283! Please tell me you used duct tape! Just one more use.
Oh, what is photography coming too! I saw on DP that Sony has a camera chip that will take 300 frames per second. That means each birthday party can be ten times longer and skills like for this pic may become a black art. Here comes spray-n-pray!
Just a great shot Tom, and intriguing setup. I'm also wondering of you shot thru the switch you made. How many takes??
This image is a real standout!!
Peter
This shot is the 4th bottle, I shot 6 round total (2 without bottles), and took around 30 shots with my camera to test the setup. One of the issues was that because of the fast duration the light area was fairly small or if the flash was farther away from the bottle the lighting was not sufficient to get detail or detail was lost in noise.
This is my first bottle shot test. Not knowing the response time of the trigger I put the trigger in front of the bottle. The gases from the rifle triggered the flash. I thought this shot interesting because of the visible gas and the bullet.
The trigger for my entry shot was larger than the one pictured and around 8" from the bottle on the other side. Another interesting outcome of the posted shot was the fisheye effect on the background material. This was not present on the fabric in my setup shots. There were several more of these circles on the pre-cropped version of this shot. I am not sure if they were caused by gas or shards of glass??
HH and Peter, the tape was at 2 ends of the foil with the center of the switch separated the thickness of the rubber tape...rubber tape is about 3 times thicker than common electrical tape. Oh and Mark, I did use one small piece of duct tape to help secure the trigger on the entry shot.
Tom....this is absolutely my Favorite!! My husband being in law enforcement for over 40 years
and a true 'gun buff' immediately thought that that would be a great idea. But you certainly
pulled it off brilliantly. The lemonade bottle is even interesting on its own!! What timing!
Congratulations!!
