A team of researchers at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh have developed a new laser camera system that can take extremely precise 3D depth scan images from up to a kilometer away (0.62 miles). An impressive advancement in laser imaging, the camera uses a low power infrared laser beam to create 3D images precise to the millimeter. Read more…
Earlier this month, we featured an upcoming license plate frame that uses bright flashes of light to prevent traffic enforcement photographs. In the article, we mentioned that the concept could potentially be used by the rich and famous to avoid the constant gaze of paparazzi cameras. Turns out the rich and famous are already one step ahead of us.
Eclipse, the world’s largest private yacht owned by Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, already features a high-tech anti-photography system that uses lasers to seek out and deny cameras.
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The Nero Multi Trigger is a nifty camera triggering device that can make your DSLR and external flash unit respond automatically to sight, sound, and motion. It has built in optical, audio, and laser sensors, allowing you to shoot everything from lightning flashes to balloon pops. There’s also an intervalometer for time-lapse photography. The device mounts to your DSLR’s hotshoe and is powered by a pair of AAA batteries. They cost $200 each and are available for both Nikon and Canon DSLRs from the NERO website.
Nero Trigger (via OhGizmo!)
German scientists have been awarded a Guinness World Record for “fastest movie” after successfully capturing two images of an X-ray laser beam 50 femtoseconds apart. One femtosecond is equal to one quadrillionth (or one millionth of one billionth) of a second. Here’s some science talk explaining it:
[...] the scientists split the X-ray laser beam into two flashes and sent one of them via a detour of only 0.015 millimetres, making it arrive 50 femtoseconds later than the first one. Since no detector can be read out so fast, the scientists stored both images as superimposed holograms, allowing the subsequent reconstruction of the single images.
With these experiments, the scientists showed that this record slow motion is achievable. However, they did not only take the world’s fastest but probably also the shortest film – with just two images. Thus, additional development work is necessary for the use of this method in practice. [#]
And we thought one trillion frames per second was impressive…
Image credit: Photograph by Stefan Eisebitt/HZB
European Southern Observatory photo ambassador Yuri Beletsky shot a series of epic photos showing astronomers shooting powerful laser beams into the night sky. The photo above showing a laser beam pointed at the center of our galaxy was voted as last year’s Picture of the Year over at Wikipedia.
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On a rainy day recently, light painting photographer Jeremy Jackson was playing around with a green laser pointer when he discovered something interesting: all the out of focus raindrops in the photograph had a lined pattern in them — and each one was unique! These “water drop snowflakes” were found in all of the photos he took that day.
Anyone know what causes this phenomenon?
(via DIYPhotography)
Image credit: Photograph by Jeremy Jackson and used with permission
We have a bit of a scoop for you today: there’s going to be a new Kickstarter-funded gadget announced on Thursday called the Triggertrap. It’s a pretty nifty universal camera trigger that can trigger your camera’s shutter with anything you can think of using a built-in intervalometer, a laser trigger, a sound sensor, and an Aux input that you can connect custom triggers to:
Think about it: You press your car horn, it takes a photo. Your phone rings, it takes a photo. The sun rises, it takes a photo. Anything is possible – and that’s why this camera trigger is so eminently hackable and exciting to experimental photographers all over the world!
There’s also a private sneak-peek of the Kickstarter video over on Vimeo. The password is TriggerTrap123.
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Photographer Adrian Onsen wanted to use the AI Servo autofocus mode on his Canon 40D in low-light situations, but found that the AF assist beam is only emitted once until focus is achieved rather than every time the camera needs to refocus. He then purchased a laser pointer from a dollar store, disassembled it to obtain a defocused beam of light, and attached it to the top of his camera. The hacked-together AF assist tool ended up working pretty well — Onsen was able to shoot sharper photos at a dance club without anyone noticing the extra light. To learn more check out his in-depth writeup here.
AF Assist tool (via Hack a Day)
We all know pointing your DSLR directly at the sun for extended periods of time isn’t too healthy for your sensor, but what about laser lights like the ones used at concerts? Turns out those can be even more lethal for your camera, even with very brief exposures.
Here are two videos shot with DSLR cameras that show a laser briefly passing over the camera and damaging the sensor permanently. Both were shot with Canon 5D Mark II cameras:
See the white line that appears immediately after the laser sweeps across?
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Belgian photographer fotoopa (“photo grandpa” in Dutch) shoots ultra-high speed photographs with laser rigs he builds himself. He tells us:
I’m retired, and work inside in the winter making high-speed pictures of water figures. In the springtime and summer I’m outside to capturing insects in-flight. I have a mechanics (15 years experience) and electronics (26 years) background, but photography was always my hobby.
All of my equipment is do-it-yourself. Macro photography has always been one of my favorite types of photography.
Descriptions and diagrams of his rigs are posted for 2008 and 2009. Here’s a glimpse at one of his setups:
To capture insects in flight, his rig detects the insects using two crossed laser beams. This causes a “superfast electro magnet” to trigger the shutter, which opens and closes in less than 5 milliseconds. Shooting at f/22 and ISO 100, he uses 2 or 3 external flashes at minimum power to obtain sufficient light at so short a shutter speed. He adds,
For insects in-flight, a special second shutter system provides the short shutter-lag of ~7 msec necessary. There is also a high-tech IR laser system with an extra third macro-lens and internal AVR controller. In 40 microseconds, this system sees (via the reflected IR light into the detector lens) if an object comes in focus, and give the information to the central CPLD hardware controller that drive the whole system. In this manner even very fast moving insects are in perfect focus in the picture frame.
In the winter, the water figures are done indoors. First done in 2004, I covered a speaker with a membrane, and put a digital wave through it to move the fine colored droplets on the membrane. This provides wonderful images and an unlimited number of possibilities.
For 2010 I built a 3D stereo setup to capture all the high-speed macro pictures in 3D. The setup uses 2 DSLR Nikon cameras, the D200 and D300
To see more of these amazing photographs, you can check out fotoopa on Flickr or on pbase.
(via MAKE)
Image credit: Photographs by fotoopa and used with permission.
