handgun

Sharing a photo on Facebook usually doesn't result in you getting 15 years in jail. That is, unless the photo is a gun selfie and you're a convicted felon.

Want to see what a speeding bullet leaving a handgun looks like at 73,000 frames per second? Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman of Mythbusters recently decided to find out by pointing a Phantom v2010 high-speed camera at Hyneman while he fired a pistol. While the price of this camera hasn't been published, its predecessor, the v1610 cost around $100,000.

Photographer Steven Pippin creates unique photographs that capture the precise moment in which the camera used to capture the photo is destroyed by a bullet from a handgun. The images show the final moment of the camera's existence (with the help of a mirror) and are themselves damaged by the bullet passing through the film.

Here's an interesting video tutorial by Destin of Smarter Every Day that shows how you can capture amazing photos of guns being fired and their muzzle flashes. Here's the "basic" idea: he uses a piezoelectric transducer to convert acoustical energy into an electrical pulse, which he sends through a pulse generator. The pulse from the pulse generator is used to trigger a flash and an high-speed exposure. This allows him to photograph guns at the moment they're fired in the same way many people photograph lightning.