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Celebration Of High-Speed Photography

By Vailancio Rodrigues, November 2nd, 2008 in Inspiration | 131 Comments | Forum

By Vailancio Rodrigues and Smashing Editorial Team

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.

A Splash

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.

KevLewis

Ghirlanda Colore
The photo is taken by Antonino Dattola.

Water Sphere

Popping Balloons
The photo is taken by Rob Hilken.

Allesblinkt

kalimistuk

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.

Inapond

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.

Bullet Pictures

Red Light Bulb
Photo by spyzter.

Pabst + Hollow Point

Water Dart
Photo by Adam Connah.

Nebarnix High-speed photography set

Flame

Ain’t No Reason

Minutes of fun
Photo by cavern.

Slow-Motion Videos

High Slow-Motion Compilation

Car Explosion

Drop in Slow Motion

Lighter

High-Speed Camera of a Bullet

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:

Also consider our previous articles:

(al)

Published in Inspiration, November 2nd, 2008
Tags: high-speed, inspiration, photography, slow-motion

1.

Brad Blogging.com - Personal Blog Tips And Blog Help (November 2nd, 2008, 3:23 pm)

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.
2.

pixelinjection (November 2nd, 2008, 3:51 pm)

these are amazing! I really want to get into photography one day. Thanks for these SM!
3.

shalti (November 2nd, 2008, 4:11 pm)

Actually two of the photos (the light trails) are long exposure photos, quite the opposite of high-speed photography…
4.

BeantownDesign.com (November 2nd, 2008, 4:16 pm)

I like the egg and the wine ones the best.
5.

Ivo (November 2nd, 2008, 4:20 pm)

amazing photos!
6.

Marek (November 2nd, 2008, 4:43 pm)

High speed cameras are inventions as was a microscope in back i don’t know which century.
7.

spongepuppy (November 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.
8.

Mona (November 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
9.

Philip P. (November 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!
10.

Marcelo F.S. (November 2nd, 2008, 7:08 pm)

Wonderfull images and videos. Who knows the name or the artist who plays on HD highspeed video?
11.

ping# (November 2nd, 2008, 7:36 pm)

Cool!!! Keep up the good job!!!
12.

nix (November 2nd, 2008, 7:39 pm)

remarkable.
13.

noussh (November 2nd, 2008, 8:18 pm)

Amazing photographs…. Something amateur photographers rarely experiment…. We should give it try..
14.

Gomi (November 2nd, 2008, 10:02 pm)

Like some said… long-exposures are the opposite of high-speed photography.
15.

Andris (November 2nd, 2008, 11:13 pm)

I’m pretty impressed. These pictures look awesome. «Inapond» kinda looks like a snail.
16.

Rouwkema (November 2nd, 2008, 11:53 pm)

Wow, great collection of pictures. And great to see one of mine included in the list :-)
17.

Megan (November 3rd, 2008, 12:38 am)

Yes, they are all wonderful but the light trails aren’t ‘high speed’ photography ;-)
18.

xepik (November 3rd, 2008, 12:44 am)

wow, simply amazing
i esp love that flame picture
19.

Saulius (November 3rd, 2008, 1:08 am)

Here are more High Speed images: Link [lukse.lt]
20.

Marie (November 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).
21.

Paulo Sacramento (November 3rd, 2008, 2:50 am)

Awesome pics man!
22.

Elijah (November 3rd, 2008, 5:59 am)

Nice collection!
I have a couple cool high-speed pics too, for those interested:
Link [aceoft.deviantart.com] and
Link [aceoft.deviantart.com]
23.

MSOnWired (November 3rd, 2008, 6:15 am)

Great Post! Love the Water Sound Figures and balloons. Nice photography.
24.

Mike Panic (November 3rd, 2008, 6:21 am)

One of the better high speed photographers that I’ve been following for years, Link [www.splutphoto.com].
25.

krk sastri (November 3rd, 2008, 8:37 am)

fine & inspiring indeed for the pracitioners of advanced art & science too !
26.

Daniel (November 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…
27.

will (November 3rd, 2008, 10:08 am)

My brother has taken several high speed bird in flight photographs and has won several photographic competitions with them:
Link [www.burrard-lucas.com]
28.

Bryan (November 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.
29.

Jen (November 3rd, 2008, 11:38 am)

Please forgive me, I’m new to photography techniques. Which pics are long exposure pictures?
30.

Zephyel (November 3rd, 2008, 12:09 pm)

Welcome in wykop.pl
31.

raafi (November 3rd, 2008, 2:01 pm)

Here’s a commercial with high-speed and a Link [www.youtube.com].
32.

sarah (November 3rd, 2008, 2:21 pm)

OMG this is awesome!!!!! :]!!!
33.

Szymon (November 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).
34.

André (November 3rd, 2008, 3:47 pm)

Très belles photos !!! Félicitations….
j’espère un jour en prendre des pareilles….
35.

Milinda (November 3rd, 2008, 7:33 pm)

Great!
36.

Arvinth (November 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.
37.

Mehran Ataei (November 3rd, 2008, 10:03 pm)

Fantastic,fantabulous
Thanks
38.

Per Kjellander (November 3rd, 2008, 11:42 pm)

awesome! i think the ballon slowmo is so beutiful and cool…
39.

Jérôme M (November 4th, 2008, 6:22 am)

Dissolving sugar into water (normal speed) :
Link [www.plusmoins.net]
40.

heather van de mark (November 4th, 2008, 11:57 am)

really fantastic collection. great job SM!
41.

Polarstern (November 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
42.

vicank (November 4th, 2008, 6:30 pm)

cool work..
43.

Spencer (November 4th, 2008, 6:59 pm)

Thanks… awesome list…
44.

Rakesh.S (November 4th, 2008, 9:21 pm)

Outstanding !! Amazing post.
45.

cavern (November 4th, 2008, 10:48 pm)

how the hell did my shot get in there?
and who said they could use it?
46.

paris (November 5th, 2008, 5:25 pm)

like the light of HOS photo …
47.

Samwise (November 6th, 2008, 2:02 am)

Amazing !
48.

shankar (November 6th, 2008, 2:24 am)

amezing photo grophy wowwwww
49.

ali fuat (November 6th, 2008, 1:30 pm)

Cool bunch of works, thanks!
50.

jes (November 6th, 2008, 6:14 pm)

I was amazed
51.

Duygu (November 6th, 2008, 11:03 pm)

Wonderful, i like these..!
52.

Remco Tolsma (November 7th, 2008, 1:15 am)

In one word: ‘amazing’!
53.

znydz (November 7th, 2008, 2:26 am)

Awesome high-speed photograph…
I like most water sphere and high-speed milk drop..looks really cool..
54.

judy (November 12th, 2008, 12:15 am)

these are good .
55.

Sam (November 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.
56.

web (November 12th, 2008, 7:27 am)

this makes me think of all the beauty in ordinary things that we just take for granted.
57.

john (November 17th, 2008, 10:25 am)

Wow. Amazing!

See this site Link [www.busimonster.com]
58.

imranblog.co.cc (December 15th, 2008, 8:46 pm)

i am define everything in one word.

beautiful
59.

Microflash (January 2nd, 2009, 7:51 pm)

You will find more high speed photographs and other technical and scientific photographs at Link [people.rit.edu] 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 Link [people.rit.edu]

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 Link [www.liquidsculpture.com]

regards,
Andrew Davidhazy at Rochester Institute of Technology Link [people.rit.edu]
60.

vandit (January 13th, 2009, 11:18 am)

hey can I download these pics to put on my wallpaper ??
61.

kit (February 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.
62.

Paul @ BBC (May 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

Link [www.youtube.com]
63.

Anton (June 3rd, 2009, 8:34 pm)

Cool!