Fast Flash Photography

Author: Tim

I have tried a few fast-motion capture experiments with a long open shutter in a dark room, where some event triggers a fast flash, thereby only briefly illuminating the subject. These are preliminary. All triggered by the breaking of a wire and interrupting a circuit. FWHM flash durations were about 10us.

Rupturing a red balloon

Smashed light bulb #1

Smashed light bulb #2

initial phases of exploding party popper (note wire across face of the barrel)

Here are a few details of the fast flash setup:

Example of think copper foil that ruptures, breaking the circuit which fires the flash lamp.

A used spiral Xe flash lamp from a ruby laser. The high voltage is placed across the spiral tube (white and green capped leads) and a capacitively coupled HV pulse triggers the flash.

Flash charging, triggering, and current measuring setup.

Flash current profile, FWHM ~ 22us