Explosion Photography settings

I have a shoot coming up that I need to capture stills of controlled explosions in a semi-enclosed area. I'm using a 1DX and external continuous lighting for the video that's being shot as well. The video is being shot on a Phantom at 2000 fps. The 1DX will be located about 15 feet away behind safety glass. The explosions are VERY bright for a split second and then show tons of sparks and debris flying away. This all occurs in less than two seconds.

Any suggestions on how to expose for this? I need to shutter speeds of 1/2500 or faster to get stop action (required by the client), but on my aperture I'm uncertain how to go. The client wants the 1DX shots for super hi-res photos. The Phantom is shooting at 1080p, but frame grabs are not suitable for much enlargement for printing purposes.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

I'd be stumped. Seems like it would be impossible to do unless you are willing to let Auto ISO take care of the changes. But then again, might not be such a good idea for high-res pics. Sure seems like a lot to accomplish in less than 2 seconds.

Interested to hear the suggestions of others.

I'm not an expert by any means, but it sounds like your best option would be 2 cameras, one exposing for the very bright explosion and the other (using a remote of some sort) for the darker sparks and debris.
sorry but that' is the best I've got

Contact Industrial Light and Magic. They do this stuff every day.

With the Phantom cameras, we essentially expect the actual explosion to be totally "blown out" (excuse the pun) and are looking at the fractions of seconds after the brightest part to capture molten debris and sparks ejected out from the explosion. I won't even try to expose for the brightest part of the exposure - they are SUPER bright and likely beyond the capabilities of any dSLR sensor.

Another way of thinking of this is trying to photograph fireworks (in the daytime) but trying to get complete frozen action with impercebtible motion of the sparks.

Probably I will say something to dumb, but why not use a Flash triggered by sound with the delay adjusted..
What I know is that when using a flash in a very low setting this is what freeze the action (so it becomes the real shutter speed to freeze) a kit like this could probably help you http://hiviz.com/kits/​sk3.htm

And here are a few values of actual duration according to power level
http://www.flickr.com …/in/set-72157628809640041

Interesting idea... The question is could I find flashes capable of shooting 10-12 fps like the 1DX will - and that would allow me to get shots of all of the explosion sequence? Worth looking into.

Thanks.

Would the flashes be strong enough to illuminate the scene...or able to be safely placed close enough to be effective?

I'm really interested to see what shots you end up getting of this explosion. Be sure to post back here with some samples.