High-Speed Destruction with High-Speed Flash

I've been designing and building a high-speed LED flash (the 'Edgerton') for my hobby of photographing glass getting shot. It replaces a typical xenon tube flash, which is too slow to freeze a high-velocity projectile. The unit is finally complete, here are a few of the results using a 1-microsecond flash pulse.

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/2evx​KSa

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/2fUv​DpK

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/TLdN​hw

Wow, awesome and interesting write-up. I assume that you had the shutter of the camera open and relied on the flash only?

Thanks JJ!

Yes, I didn't explain that well. Turned off all the lights, covered the windows, and opened the camera shutter for a few seconds. While the shutter was open, the glass gets shot and the flash is triggered at the exact right moment. I used a ballistic chronograph to trigger the flash, but other folks have also used audio triggers and even a little wire in front of the gun that gets broken when the pellet / bullet goes through.

That's what I thought. The results are really good. Just curious, does your eye perceive the flash? At less than a microsecond, I would think you would see nothing. Could have a new market in wedding and red carpet photography. Taking flash pictures and no one knows.

Well that's a clever thought! NINJA-TOGRAPHER!

I had wondered the same thing, turns out that it is VERY visible. You can tell what the photo is going to look like just by watching. It's happens so fast and abrupt, it almost feels like a faded memory.

I got curious and DuckDuckGo-ed around a bit and it seems that with very short flashes, it's the total luminous energy and not the duration. Kind of makes sense as that is what happens to a camera.

Innovative. Bravo.

Thanks Olivia!