High speed photography is done by using extremely short duration bursts of flash in the range of 1/16000 of a second or lesser. A normal DSLR camera is unable to cope with those speeds due to mechanical constraints and the speeds involved . Another major hurdle is trying to click the shutter at the exact time the event happened. This is beyond the human capacity. So we have to use electronics to fire the short duration flash at the right moment . The photographs depicted here were taken a long time ago with a Nikon D70. This was the first affordable Nikon DSLR released after the D1 series . It was released around 2004. So one can imagine the difficulty, nearly 20 years ago.
I had to construct electronic circuits that could fire the flash at that right appropriate moment. My experience being a HAM came in handy. One has to have a fair knowledge of photography and electronics to achieve it. The electronics hardware were prototyped and functionalized by me .The following electronic triggers were used to fire the flash
The circuits had to have a delay timer in milliseconds which was used by trial and error to get the correct time of flash triggering when the balloon burst and the water drops fell, triggering the circuit.
Today there are ready made gadgets to film water drops and bursting of balloons. There are also extremely expensive digital photo apparatus to take photo graphs at 1/ 000,000 of a second as well.
The photo of the wasp carrying a caterpillar was challenging. It was shot using 3 Nikon flashes firing at a duration of approximately 1/16000 of a sec. The wing of the wasp beats about 200 times a sec.!
The following equipment were used in high speed photography
Nikon D70s
2x SB28DX ,SB-800
SC-19, SC-17 cords
Sound activated electronic trigger
Laser light activated electronic trigger
Custom made stands