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Celebration Of High-Speed Photography
A digital camera, some fast-moving subject, and a bit of knowledge about how to take the best pictures of moving subjects will launch you on the road to some of the most interesting photographs you’ve ever taken. Although some blurring can be effective in communicating a sense of high-speed motion, some photographers want the subject to be frozen in time to get some pretty special photographic effects.
Below we present over 35 beautiful examples of high-speed photography, which are supposed to provide you with some inspiration of what can be done with high-speed photography. We also showcase some truly stunning slow-motion videos. All the examples are linked to their sources. You can also explore further works of the photographers we’ve featured below.
35 Beautiful Examples of High-Speed Photography
Heart Breaker
The photo is taken by Jeroen Rouwkema.
Marbles
The photo is taken by fotoopa.
Sound-triggered high-speed flash photography
These experiments were performed as part of the 2008 Astro-Science Workshop of the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, IL.
The Red And The Blue
The photo is taken by Paul Hocksenar.
Cherry Drop
Photo by Brian Davies.
Ghirlanda Colore
The photo is taken by Antonino Dattola.
Popping Balloons
The photo is taken by Rob Hilken.
Apple Water Splash
Photo by linden.g.
Speedy burst water balloon
“Awesome and interesting shot of a water balloon being popped. I’ve never seen a planet blow up, but this is how I imagine it would look.”
Water Sound Figures
Photo by linden.g.
Smashed (and burning) bulb
The photo is taken by Peter Wienerroither from the University of Wien, Austria.
Rising Up
Photo by James Neeley.
Strange Brew
Photo by Ray Edgar.
Shattered Glass
“This photo perfectly freezes the moment between the breaking of the bulb and the tungsten filaments (thereby breaking the source of light), it’s a sort of limbo captured.”
Unknown (?)
Milk and Coffee
The photo is taken by Andreas Stridsberg.
Red Light Bulb
Photo by spyzter.
Water Dart
Photo by Adam Connah.
Nebarnix High-speed photography set
Minutes of fun
Photo by cavern.
Slow-Motion Videos
Shaking / Alternate Take
Eleven minutes of HD highspeed slowmotion.
Schweppes Slow Motion Advertisement
Last Click
Full Magnum Schlieren
“This full-scale schlieren image shows the discharge of a .44 Magnum revolver. Two spherical shock waves are seen, one centered about the gun’s muzzle (the muzzle blast) and a second centered on the cylinder. The supersonic bullet is visible at the far left. This weapon produces a bright muzzle flash and a cloud of products of gunpowder combustion that envelops the hands of the shooter. Such high-speed images help forensics experts understand the transfer of gunpowder traces to the hands when firing a gun.”
How To Make High-Speed Photos?
The choice of shutter speed has a profound effect on the way moving subjects are recorded. For average everyday shooting with standard zooms, a speed over 1/20 to 1/125 second will prevent motion blur (camera shake). However, as the shutter speed goes past 1/500 second, you can then start to take advantage of the faster shutter speed’s ability to freeze action. For high-speed photography (especially sports photography), it is really necessary to get good motion blur-free shots. But making these speeds possible also requires either wide apertures, bright lighting conditions or an adjustment to the camera’s ISO speed — or a combination of all three.
Sometime the task of catching the most expressive instant, which can last for only hundredths of a second, becomes very difficult. In such cases, most photographers use the sequence mode, so that the camera fires several shots as it is panned. Cameras with a sequence mode let you fire a sequence and then throw out all of the non-sharp or useless images.
If you need to shoot a photo of a girl’s hair flying about or freeze the splash of a pouring drink, strobe is the way to do it. Most photographers use electronic flash as the lighting source in studios to freeze motion. Since electronic flash (strobe) stays lit between 1/800th and 1/2000th of a second, and because you will usually be shooting at f-stops above f-8, everything in the image will be razor sharp.
Further Resources
Further articles and related resources:
- Make Magazine:High Speed Photography Kit
- DIY – High Speed Photography at Home
- High Speed Photography Flickr Pool
- Liquid Art: Droplet Photography
Related posts
Also consider our previous articles:
- Beautiful Black and White Photography
- 35 Fantastic HDR Pictures
- (Really) Stunning Pictures and Photos
- Let There Be Light: Light Painting and Sculptures
- 45 Beautiful Motion Blur Photos
- 35 Beautiful Examples Of Rain Photography
(al)
Vailancio Rodrigues, born and currently living in scenic beauty of Goa, spent most of his childhood in art and creativity. At present a College student who likes to try and do different things at every moment. Also an webmaster and web designer – Tiny Goa and Pixel Art.
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- 1
- 2November 2nd, 2008 3:51 pm
these are amazing! I really want to get into photography one day. Thanks for these SM!
- 3November 2nd, 2008 4:11 pm
Actually two of the photos (the light trails) are long exposure photos, quite the opposite of high-speed photography…
- 4November 2nd, 2008 4:16 pm
I like the egg and the wine ones the best.
- 5November 2nd, 2008 4:20 pm
amazing photos!
- 6November 2nd, 2008 4:43 pm
High speed cameras are inventions as was a microscope in back i don’t know which century.
- 7November 2nd, 2008 5:43 pm
That’s right Marek – high speed cameras are indeed an invention, a characteristic they share with other inventions. I’m glad you shone the radiant beam of your intellect on this subject, as are all other Smashing Magazine readers.
- 8November 2nd, 2008 6:13 pm
How come you can’t tell the difference between long exposure, and high-speed photography?
A little bit of research before publishing won’t harm - 9November 2nd, 2008 7:06 pm
Don’t really understand the inclusion of the two tail-light photos and the “Minutes of fun”. The tail-light photos are great, but quite the opposite of high-speed photography! And the “Minutes of fun”, nice as it may be, doesn’t appear to have anything special apart from the fact that it’s a wonderful photo.
That said, the collection of photos you have is great – and I love how you moved beyond the typical photos that are seen everywhere, and highlighted some other great pieces that have used this skill very well.
Cheers to all the photographers! Certainly takes a lot of skill to get photos like these!
- 10November 2nd, 2008 7:08 pm
Wonderfull images and videos. Who knows the name or the artist who plays on HD highspeed video?
- 11November 2nd, 2008 7:36 pm
Cool!!! Keep up the good job!!!
- 12November 2nd, 2008 7:39 pm
remarkable.
- 13November 2nd, 2008 8:18 pm
Amazing photographs…. Something amateur photographers rarely experiment…. We should give it try..
- 14November 2nd, 2008 10:02 pm
Like some said… long-exposures are the opposite of high-speed photography.
- 15November 2nd, 2008 11:13 pm
I’m pretty impressed. These pictures look awesome. «Inapond» kinda looks like a snail.
- 16November 2nd, 2008 11:53 pm
Wow, great collection of pictures. And great to see one of mine included in the list :-)
- 17November 3rd, 2008 12:38 am
Yes, they are all wonderful but the light trails aren’t ‘high speed’ photography ;-)
- 18November 3rd, 2008 12:44 am
wow, simply amazing
i esp love that flame picture - 19November 3rd, 2008 1:08 am
Here are more High Speed images: http://lukse.lt/high%20speed/2008%2010%2025%20high%20speed%20workshop/high%20speed/index.htm
- 20November 3rd, 2008 1:14 am
I have to agree the light trails photos are a bit out of place here (they are good photos though).
- 21November 3rd, 2008 2:50 am
Awesome pics man!
- 22November 3rd, 2008 5:59 am
Nice collection!
I have a couple cool high-speed pics too, for those interested:
Cymbal strike and
More water splashing - 23November 3rd, 2008 6:15 am
Great Post! Love the Water Sound Figures and balloons. Nice photography.
- 24November 3rd, 2008 6:21 am
One of the better high speed photographers that I’ve been following for years, http://www.splutphoto.com.
- 25November 3rd, 2008 8:37 am
fine & inspiring indeed for the pracitioners of advanced art & science too !
- 26November 3rd, 2008 9:16 am
Is “Pabst + Hollow Point” the one everyone says is long exposure? It just looks like high-speed of a lazer…
- 27November 3rd, 2008 10:08 am
My brother has taken several high speed bird in flight photographs and has won several photographic competitions with them:
See them HERE - 28November 3rd, 2008 11:21 am
the one where he is holding the red light bulb which was shot…
just seems like a very bad idea, and poor safety.
- 29November 3rd, 2008 11:38 am
Please forgive me, I’m new to photography techniques. Which pics are long exposure pictures?
- 30November 3rd, 2008 12:09 pm
Welcome in wykop.pl
- 31
- 32November 3rd, 2008 2:21 pm
OMG this is awesome!!!!! :]!!!
- 33November 3rd, 2008 2:22 pm
As much as I enjoy these photo posts, it’s pretty annoying that the choice of photos is always low-resolution shots off of Flickr that cannot be used as desktop wallpapers. Sometimes if I get lucky one or two shots will be high-res (because like most people test days, my screen size is larger than 1024×768).
- 34November 3rd, 2008 3:47 pm
Très belles photos !!! Félicitations….
j’espère un jour en prendre des pareilles…. - 35November 3rd, 2008 7:33 pm
Great!
- 36November 3rd, 2008 9:50 pm
As much as i appreciate some of the pictures posted, i have a feeling some of the pics are digitally modified/doctored.One of the milk drop picture is too good to be genuine.and the shadow deceives it. not sure whether my judgment is right.
- 37November 3rd, 2008 10:03 pm
Fantastic,fantabulous
Thanks - 38November 3rd, 2008 11:42 pm
awesome! i think the ballon slowmo is so beutiful and cool…
- 39November 4th, 2008 6:22 am
Dissolving sugar into water (normal speed) :
http://www.plusmoins.net/LE-DRAME-DU-SUCRE-Philippe-Fontes - 40November 4th, 2008 11:57 am
really fantastic collection. great job SM!
- 41November 4th, 2008 4:10 pm
If I see another cliche water balloon being popped and called wonderful, inspiring, or some other empty superlative, I’m going to go insane.
Seriously, are these peoples imagination so limited that the best they can come up with is popping a water balloon or dropping a drop of one thing into a puddle of another?
12 of the 49 pics/vids were some kind of balloon pop.
14 of the 49 pics/vids were some some kind of drop/splash of liquid.More than half of the photographers shown here lack sufficient imagination to do more than mediocre HS photos
That being said, I enjoy the creative photos like the egg/mousetrap, the marbles/bubble, and the .44 Mag
- 42November 4th, 2008 6:30 pm
cool work..
- 43November 4th, 2008 6:59 pm
Thanks… awesome list…
- 44November 4th, 2008 9:21 pm
Outstanding !! Amazing post.
- 45November 4th, 2008 10:48 pm
how the hell did my shot get in there?
and who said they could use it? - 46November 5th, 2008 5:25 pm
like the light of HOS photo …
- 47November 6th, 2008 2:02 am
Amazing !
- 48November 6th, 2008 2:24 am
amezing photo grophy wowwwww
- 49November 6th, 2008 1:30 pm
Cool bunch of works, thanks!
- 50November 6th, 2008 6:14 pm
I was amazed
- 51November 6th, 2008 11:03 pm
Wonderful, i like these..!
- 52November 7th, 2008 1:15 am
In one word: ‘amazing’!
- 53November 7th, 2008 2:26 am
Awesome high-speed photograph…
I like most water sphere and high-speed milk drop..looks really cool.. - 54November 12th, 2008 12:15 am
these are good .
- 55November 12th, 2008 3:11 am
Polarstern. You’re a miserable shit, aren’t you?
Perhaps next time, if you want to see more creative high-speed shots, you could film yourself having sex. You’d need a fucking fast frame rate to capture that.
- 56November 12th, 2008 7:27 am
this makes me think of all the beauty in ordinary things that we just take for granted.
- 57
- 58December 15th, 2008 8:46 pm
i am define everything in one word.
beautiful
- 59January 2nd, 2009 7:51 pm
You will find more high speed photographs and other technical and scientific photographs at http://people.rit.edu/andpph/exhibit-3.html and a plethora of articles dealing with a high speed photographs of birds and insects and bullets n flight as well as splashes, etc. by visiting http://people.rit.edu/andpph/articles.html
Interesting that among all the samples you published there were none by some of the pioneers of the “genre” namely Harold “Doc” Edgerton.
I might also point out Martin Waugh’s site at http://www.liquidsculpture.com
regards,
Andrew Davidhazy at Rochester Institute of Technology http://people.rit.edu/andpph/ - 60January 13th, 2009 11:18 am
hey can I download these pics to put on my wallpaper ??
- 61February 1st, 2009 9:42 am
I’m with Polarstern on this one. The good news is that it’s really relatively easy to get a good bursting balloon shot. The bad news is that it’s quite difficult to think of anything truly original to do with this sort of photography.
- 62May 7th, 2009 1:16 am
Can I chuck this one into the mix. We shot it recently in Micronesia after building a housing for a £100k Typhoon HD4
- 63June 3rd, 2009 8:34 pm
Cool!
- 00
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I find these types of photos are incredible and really alters a person’s state of reality. You would never be able to see these types of things without technology.