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Cornstarch and Water Balloons

Saturday, May 9th, 2009

I was hoping to give you a break from exploding balloons today, but it didn’t work out that way.  I had two events planned for yesterday – first, I planned to take pictures at a college baseball game and work on my sports photography. Unfortunately, the game was being played in a different state.

Next, I planned to take in the Danny Gokey mini-concert on Milwaukee’s lakefront, and take some concert photos. This plan failed when, after spending an inordinate amount of time in traffic to get to the event, I discovered that I didn’t have a memory card for the camera with me.  0 for 2…

The Big Bang

The Big Bang

So, back to exploding balloons. Playing around with the placement of the sound detecter, I’ve gotten better on timing the flash – although the flash duration is still a challenge. However, because the balloon deflates so quickly, I decided to try putting a little bit of cornstarch in the balloon, hoping the cornstarch would retain the balloon’s shape for a split-second as the balloon deflates.

My first lesson here was: don’t wear a black shirt while exploding balloons with cornstarch. The pictures were interesting, though.

Balloon with Cornstarch

Balloon with Cornstarch

The two pictures shown here are similar shots, taken of a balloon with a small amount of cornstarch inserted before inflating. The timing is slightly different between the two shots, giving a very different feel to each. In the first picture, the balloon is completely deflated and the cornstarch has exploded outwards.

In the second picture, the pellet (moving from right to left) has just exited the balloon, pulling the rubber with it. The balloon is in the process of deflating, but hasn’t gotten too far, yet.

Not to be put off by a little dusting of cornstarch, I decided to up the stakes a little by taking aim at a water balloon.

Water Balloon

Water Balloon

In contrast to the cornstarch where only a little is used, this requires that the balloon be completely filled with water.

As you can see in the picture, the balloon has almost disappeared, but the water has retained the shape of the balloon. The water is blurred by the flash duration, but I’m happy to get this far in just one week of experimentation.

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High Speed Photography

Monday, May 4th, 2009

I’ve always been interested in high speed photography – the ability to capture the precise moment a balloon is popped, or capturing a drop of water just as it hits the water’s surface. An earlier example of that is the ‘Splash!‘ photo I posted a little while back.

In an effort to take this to the next level, I’m working on a setup that will let me experiment more with high speed photography. In order to do this, I need something that will trigger a flash at precisely the right moment, and I think I’ve found something that will help me do that.

Sound Kit Unassembled

Sound Kit Unassembled

For this first iteration, I will be using sound to trigger the flash – using an electronic circuit to detect the sound and close the circuit to fire the flash. This is the Sound trigger with Delay Unit Kit from HiViz.com.

The kit comes as you see in the picture on the left. It is a collection of resisters, capacitors, potentiometers, wires, etc., along with a solderless breadboard for assembly. While the kit comes with no instructions, HiViz has an excellent set of instructions on their website, with pictures of the assembly process at each step of the way. You really don’t have to be an electrician in order to assemble this – my biggest challenge was the small size of the components and my fat fingers!

Sound Kit Assembled

Sound Kit Assembled

You can see the assembled unit on the right. The large black circular device is the sound-detecting element, which has a sensitivity control. In addition to being triggered by a loud sound, the kit has a delay unit (also with a sensitivity control), which introduces a delay after the sound detection before the flash is triggered.

In my first experiment (which I haven’t done yet), the sound will come from a pellet gun, which will fire a pellet at an inflated balloon. There needs to be a slight delay as the pellet makes its way to the balloon, and if it works correctly, the flash will fire and capture the instance of the balloon being punctured. I’ll report back over the next couple of weeks as I work out the issues and see what kind of pictures I can capture.

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