Water Balloon Destruction

Some fun in the garage today...

1.

Real cool! Mind sharing your set-up on how you do these?

Taken in a darkened garage. Open shutter with cable release in bulb mode. Shoot at balloon. Microphone picks up sound of gun, delay on flash triggers is around 12 - 16 ms. Flashes trigger, I close the shutter/cable release.
...except the last two, those were popped with a thumb tack attached to my thumb.

Very cool

the last 2 are brilliant. how do you use a microphone to trigger the lights? i want to try this

love it.. great capture..

boerewors wrote in post #12935576
the last 2 are brilliant. how do you use a microphone to trigger the lights? i want to try this

To trigger I use StopShot:

http://www.cognisys-inc.com …619e13006978b5a​a05b6b5ecb

I use this to trigger the flashes. I actually have a Pocket Wizard attached to the trigger, and the PW in turn triggers the flashes. I am using two flashes here, Canon 580s, angled at about 45 degrees to the subject. One left, one right. Each on their own light stand and each covered with large garbage bags and zip lock bags to keep them dry. They are powered down to about 1/32 and are in close. The lower the power the faster the duration of the flash, which is needed to capture high speed shots. The 1/32 power is about as high powered as I go with these shots. I usually dial them down to 1/64 or even 1/128 to freeze it even more. The 1/32 was chosen here because it was my first time doing ballistic shots so I wanted to have my gear a little further away from the action.

The Stop Shot gear also has an IR beam system that can be programmed to trigger when the beams are broken. I have two transmitters and two receivers and my original intent was to use this system instead of the microphone for the trigger. Stop Shot has a built in program for ballistics using these IR beams. However, after a few hours od trying to get them to work in this mode with zero results I switched to audio mode with the microphone. Everything I read about ballistics told me audio trigger for ballistics is very unpredictable and un repeatable. But I was having great success with the audio. Part of it might be I was only pumping the pellet gun about 4 times to keep the speed down. Then when the pellets hit the water it slows the projectile down even more. The shot with three balloons I did several times and never got the thrid balloon to pop due to the loss of momentum from traveling through the first two. I like the unpopped balloon on then end in the shot however so I didn't push it to try and get it. I am sure if I had pumped the gun 10 times it likely would have got the third one.

High speed like this is a LOT of fun... but is also a lot of work. I've down some before but have taken some time off doing it because I use my garage for my high speed studio. It creates a huge mess so the garage is the only reasonable place I have to do this. But inside a closed garage in August, in Phoenix area is miserable. It's like working in a sauna the whole time and I was in there for hours. I am looking forward to cooler days when I don't think twice about going out there and experimenting with other high speed projects I have in mind.

If anyone needs any help or has other questions with what I am doing here don't hesitate to ask.

Awsome last shot!

darrylhopkins wrote in post #12939172
Awsome last shot!

Ha! Not what I expected response-wise. I debated whether or not to even include the last two shots. It's good to know. I thought that catching a bullet in a ballistics type shoot would be the holy grail shot that everyone would wow over. I guess that shot's been over done ? So in knowing that those last shots are what's getting attention I will explore further down this road next time. I never even planned on doing these so did not pay too much attention to the details. Next time I will likely wear a darker shirt for contrast with the water. Remove my watch and ring, maybe light it a little different, more ratio/side light perhaps. Any other suggestions on what could be improved?

fab shots, i love the last one