Anybody have more luck than this?

[onefastvr6]

I am trying to capture a muzzle flash during the day and I am not having much luck. This was the best I could do... Do I need a faster lense?

http://www.vr6.org/range/img_6786b.jpg

[Andy_T]

I like the shot ... apart from the band-aid on his finger :roll: . That spoils it a bit.

I don't think you could do it better with a faster lens ... you would have to hit the 1/500 second when the gun fires and the bullet leaves the barrel.

With flashes in thunderstorms and firework, the idea is to use a slow shutter speed, so that you get as much as possible of the light on the photo.

But this most likely won't work here because of the recoil of the gun...

Best regards,
Andy

[onefastvr6]

Yeah, I am thinking of trying it at dusk to get an even clearer flame... In the original the bullet leaves a trail you can see when you view it in actual size...

[malum]

Try moving right 90 degrees in an arc.

[onefastvr6]

Try moving right 90 degrees in an arc.

Wow, that's the first time I have been truly disappointed by a comment on this forum...

[malum]

Try moving right 90 degrees in an arc.

Wow, that's the first time I have been truly disappointed by a comment on this forum...

sense of humour failure?

[JohnClark]

what H&K model is that? the 9 or 40?

[onefastvr6]

Try moving right 90 degrees in an arc.

Wow, that's the first time I have been truly disappointed by a comment on this forum...

sense of humour failure?

I guess it could be... I take gun safety pretty seriously though. I guess in the context I could lighten up.

The H & K is a .45

[malum]

We take gun safety very seriously over here. We don't let anyone have one.
:D

[Andy_T]

We don't let anyone have one.
:D

Except criminals, of course. But then, that would be against the law :lol:

Best regards,
Andy

PS: No, I don't want to start a debate on gun laws here ... but I couldn't resist...

[Aylwin]

We don't let anyone have one.
:D

Except criminals, of course. But then, that would be against the law :lol:

You mean you actually let criminals have guns (even if it's against the law)? :twisted:

As for the photo, I don't see how you could do any better than that under the circumstances.

[Belmondo]

I would try the shot in low light against a dark background with a slow shutter using flash. The flash would illuminate the shooter's hands and the gun, but the muzzle flash would show up better.


I think.



But then, what do I know?


Also, it would be interesting to get a shot with the slide all the way back and the shell being ejected. You could sure burn through a lot of ammo tying to capture that.

BTW, I have three Sig autos. .40 S&W, .45 ACP and 9mm.
Guess that makes me a triple-threat criminal. :wink:

[onefastvr6]

Not really ;-)

http://www.vr6.org/range/img_6773b.jpg

[onefastvr6]

And

http://www.vr6.org/range/IMG_6665bsmall.jpg

I took over 300 shots so I got lots of slide action...

[karusel]

Chief, it's virtually impossible to catch a bullet, just do some calculations...

Also, if you shoot at more than 1/2000 you get a blurred bullet. I'm not really sure, but I think it should be taken at at least 1/4000 to be sharp enough. A guy named fotoopa at FM forums has done something like that...

[Belmondo]

Just thinking outloud....

If a projectile has a muzzle velocity of 1,000 feet per second. and you use a shutter speed of 1/4000 second, the bullet would travel approximately 3" while the shutter is open. Even if you could catch it when it emerges from the end of the barrel, you'd only have a few thousandths of a second before it passed out of frame.

Pretty daunting.

[JK]

...unless of course you happen to be photographing whilst within "The Matrix" in which case bullets travel at 3 feet/sec and leave funky trails! :D

[Andy_T]

If a projectile has a muzzle velocity of 1,000 feet per second. and you use a shutter speed of 1/4000 second, the bullet would travel approximately 3" while the shutter is open. Even if you could catch it when it emerges from the end of the barrel, you'd only have a few thousandths of a second before it passed out of frame.

Pretty daunting.

That kind of stuff is normally done with setups triggering the (photo) shot with light sensors and illuminating it with strobe lights, because your reflexes might not be able to catch it.

BTW ... I have a S&W 686 ...
... no problem with catching the ejection of shells on that one :lol:

Best regards,
Andy

[Ikinaa]

Just thinking outloud....

If a projectile has a muzzle velocity of 1,000 feet per second. and you use a shutter speed of 1/4000 second, the bullet would travel approximately 3" while the shutter is open. Even if you could catch it when it emerges from the end of the barrel, you'd only have a few thousandths of a second before it passed out of frame.

Pretty daunting.

Just a thought : (I don't know much about guns, so forgive me if my thoughts are completely out of reality...)
If a normal bullet has a 'muzzle velocity of 1,000 feet per second', aren't there any 'slow' bullets? like having less gunpowder (is that the correct term) or not so good gunpowder in the bullet? So as to reduce speed down to a level of say 100 feet/second? Or is this thought completely senseless?

[Belmondo]

Even BB guns have muzzle velocities over 500 fps. About the slowest conventional load I know of is the .45ACP which is somewhere just under 900FPS.

Decreasing the amount of gunpowder would slow the projectile down some, but a charge that produced a muzzle velocity of only100fps would probably not get the bullet out of the barrel. There is a slight interference fit between the bullet and the rifling lands in the barrel, and a very weak load would probably not have sufficient strength to push the bullet through.

[hank1105]

Cool shots, I like the 2nd one the most. I have a HK .40 Compact, nice utility add-on :lol:

My buddy is picking up a HK 45 in due time, they just cost a good amount. You get what you pay for, I have over 2000 rounds through mine and never had a jam up.

Thanks for sharing the photos.

Hank

[iwatkins]

As Tom said.

Set up the camera with flash. Dark background (a long distance away), and a slow shutter speed, say, 1/30.

The flash will "catch" and freeze the gun/hand but the shutter will remain open for another 1/30 second to catch the flash expansion.

You will have to experiment with the actual shutter duration as I've no idea on the life of a muzzle flash. In addition, I would recommned going totally manual and also manual control of flash power as well.

If this is something you do a lot, you might look into getting/building a sonic shutter release and then you could set the camera up in front of the firing line for different angles.

Cheers

Ian

[onefastvr6]

Thank you, that is what I will try... I was trying fast shutter speeds rather than slower ones! I have no idea why I never thought about trying that. Doh!

I am going to need a pretty big flash to stop the slide though, right?

[karusel]

If this is something you do a lot, you might look into getting/building a sonic shutter release and then you could set the camera up in front of the firing line for different angles.

Without this, you'll need more luck than you need to win the lottery...

[onefastvr6]

So that one shot I have with the flame was very lucky then? All I did was have him unload an entire clip while I held the button down :D

[dorkn]

Ahhhhh the spray and pray method.... :D

[TSORoanoke]

I like your first shot - and have wanted to try this for a long time. I shoot both my D60 and a Glock 23 and with certain ammo would love to see the flash & bullet (some rounds have so much more flash - some almost none).

Personally, I'd like to see more of the flash in the frame. Doing this may make the blur of the gun movement less noticeable - zoomed out somewhat). Also, the acoustic trigger wouldn't be all that expensive and is a great idea. A visual one may not catch the bullet though.

Not sure about your "alert" technique - a buzzer, cap-gun, etc. but having a third person sound an alert to which both you and the shooter respond may help.

Please post more as you make more attempts - Great subject, tough to achieve.

[Adam Hicks]

Well I'm a 1911 fan 99% of the time, custom Kimbers, a Les Baer, etc. but what I've done in the past is to run a lighter spring and use much lighter loads. You can get the bullet speed down over 50% and still cycle the action.

Makes it easier to get these kinds of shots, but there isn't quite as much muzzle blast. Of course, if you have too much muzzle blast you won't see the bullet!

Adam

[retro]

Try moving right 90 degrees in an arc.

Wow, that's the first time I have been truly disappointed by a comment on this forum...

sense of humour failure?

I guess it could be... I take gun safety pretty seriously though. I guess in the context I could lighten up.

The H & K is a .45

Yeah lighten up :wink: I thought it was brilliant. As for actual advice I'd say shoot at lower light.

[onefastvr6]

Yeah, I think it is funny now... I think I was pissy that day ;-P

Thank for all the advice! I am going to try again on Tuesday in lower light. and If that doesn't work I'm buying a 20D ;-P

[billsh]

You definitely need a trigger to fire your flash at the right time. At this link http://hiviz.com/about/about.htm you can read and buy kits to make a sound or light trigger. I ordered the light trigger kit and am building it this weekend. (I hope)

You can also buy photogate triggers but they are very expensive. Keep us updated on your progress. One of the photos on my list to take is a shotgun blast, complete with wad and shot.

Good Luck !!

[redbutt]

What you need to do is research the setups that Dr. Harold Edgerton used to get shots like this.

http://www.sargentwelch.com/images/700/WL67132_EA.jpg

He used strobes and neat triggers to get these amazing shots....we've all seen them...the milk drop, football being kicked. To get a really great shot, you're gonna need to take the time to really set it up.

[Jagman]

May I suggest that you may be better off using a bolt action rifle in your quest for muzzle flash and bullet pictures, I realise that you may want a pistol in your image, but you may be able to photoshop that in. The reason that I say a bolt action rifle, is that you don't have to worry about being able to get the bullet out if you are using a very slow round, a bolt will pull anything out, and the extra weight of the gun results in less kickback to show up in your shot. If you use a centre fire rifle and do you own reloading, the primer alone, if you seat the projectile in only about a millimeter, is enough to get the projectile out of the barrel and around 5 to ten metres, which would be sufficient for taking photos, and be barely faster than tossing it underarm.

I don't think that an acoustic trigger is going to be the way to go with capturing the projectile, although it may help with the flash, because most projectiles travel from speeds well over to not far below the speed of sound, so even if your trigger is right next to the muzzle, the bullet will be long gone by the time everything reacts.

My advice would be to bench mount a rifle, put your camera on a tripod, prefocus while you have light, and then wait until very low light, and try for muzzle flashes by using a long cable release and pulling the trigger of the gun yourself and experimenting with timing. Using the same setup would probably be best for getting the projectile using just the primer for propulsion, just in the daytime.

Getting the milk drop is actually quite easy, I did it with a digital camera that suffered from terrible shutter lag, so anyone with a half decent camera should be able to manage it with patience.

Heres one of the better results.

http://www.greatsoundingmusic.com/scribbly/milk04.jpg

[daduke1954]

Even BB guns have muzzle velocities over 500 fps. About the slowest conventional load I know of is the .45ACP which is somewhere just under 900FPS.

Decreasing the amount of gunpowder would slow the projectile down some, but a charge that produced a muzzle velocity of only100fps would probably not get the bullet out of the barrel. There is a slight interference fit between the bullet and the rifling lands in the barrel, and a very weak load would probably not have sufficient strength to push the bullet through.


"target rounds" using a wad cutter, or just a plain lead slug, can be "toned down" to speeds between 650 - 750 fps depending on barrel length. I am basing this on a load of 3.5 grains of bullseye and a 158 grain bullet (38 special).
I have heard of black powder weapons fireing huge 63 cal. balls at down in the 500 fps range, but have no direct knowledge.

WOW that was alot of non photography info wasn't it ?

[blinking8s]

you should research "Doc Edgerton" and "high speed photography" just for fun...he was the founder of high speed photography, both google results will give you lots of info on its history and methods, might at least spark an idea in there somewhere

at 1/8000 of a second on the 20d you should be able to at least get a pretty still shot, ive never tried to take pictures while shooting, although I do own a fairly nice gun collection and the though has occured as a fun project. First thought that comes to mine is rigging somekind of cable release from the camera to the trigger though...just to ensure the timing is at least close, but even that could be too slow or too fast