Home           Method and Setup           Photo Journal           Gallery            Conclusion

Photo Journal

Session I:  February 11, 2003  1:00 - 3:15 pm

    Before we could begin work on our project, we had to rearrange and clean the lab area.  We then continued by setting up the equipment (see Method and Setup).  Our first step was to tape the black backdrop against the wall.  We then set up our four flashes with colored filters (red, blue, orange, green) and our piezoelectric sound triggers.  Instead of using the auto-thyristors on the flash units, we used variable resistors, which would allow for both more uniform and shorter flash durations.  We began with the resistors set to minimal resistance.  The flashes were hooked up to an outlet as a power source, since batteries would have been inconvenient and less reliable.  Our triggers were connected to the flash units using special extension cords.  Using a tripod, we placed our camera near the flash units.  Finally, we positioned the gun and the pellet trap.  Once our setup was complete we began testing the sensitivities and time delays of the triggers.

    We had difficulties setting up the sound triggers because of faulty wiring and a blown-out flash, but were able to overcome these minor setbacks with little trouble (and the help of Dr. Winters).  We also had trouble adjusting the sensitivity of our sound triggers, but we did not resolve these issues until the next session.

    When our first session was finished, we had the equipment set up and ready for photographing.

Aakash taping up the backdrop.

Session II: February 13, 2003  3:30 - 5:30 pm

    We began this session by trying to get the timing and sensitivity on our sound triggers working properly.  First, we got the sensitivities set at acceptable levels, so that even when the triggers placed fairly far from the gun, the flashes would still go off.  We then experimented with the time delay by varying the distances of the triggers from the gun.  We tried to take a picture of the BB several times, but were not successful.  We were then informed that this was not a wise course of action, and that it would be much easier to place a balloon in the path of the BB to take a picture of its popping.  We also decided to use one flash instead of four, at least for the time being, since four flashes would have required a good deal more work and time than we were able to spend.  Our first picture, as seen below, turned out quite poorly, since the resistance was at a level too low, and thus the flash was too dim, for the image to be fully exposed.

This picture showed us that our flash was much too dim.

After increasing the resistance, we continued to take several more pictures, again shown below, but they were out of focus, due to our camera being zoomed in slightly.

Green Balloon:  The puncture caused by the BB can be seen on the left rear side.

Yellow Balloon:  The puncture is obviously seen, yet the focus is still unsatisfactory.

These pictures show that our time delay was as desired, with the balloons just having been hit by the BB.  During the next session we hoped to move on to shooting bulbs.

Session III: February 18, 2003 1:45 - 3:30 pm

    The first thing we did this session was create a stand for the bulbs.  Once we had this set up, we hung a sheet of paper from the stand in order to determine at what height the BB would be fired.  Initially, we missed the sheet of paper, but we adjusted our aim and were able to hit it the second time.  After we had this figured out, we hung a single bulb from the stand and began taking pictures.  Our photographing procedure is explained in the methods section.  With our first shot, our timing was slightly off, and the flash went off before the BB hit the bulb.  This can be seen in the picture below.

To increase our time delay we moved the sound trigger further from the rifle.  We then proceeded to take several more pictures, capturing the shattering bulbs.  These pictures can be seen in the Picture Gallery.  After successfully photographing only one bulb, we moved on to photographing two bulbs lined up.

    For our next session, we planned on using a pellet instead of a BB and pumping the gun fewer times in order to cause the bulb to shatter more.

Session IV: February 20, 2003  3:30 - 6:00 pm

   Since we adjusted our number of pumps, we also had to adjust the distance of our sound trigger in order to get the correct time delay.  We used one bulb to experiment until we got the time delay configured correctly, and then moved on to two bulbs.  We had several problems with two bulbs, such as being somewhat insufficient in our aiming prowess (we missed the bulbs, a lot) as seen in our picture below.

As can be seen, our aiming was fairly poor; the first bulb was missed entirely.

We also experimented with using multiple flashes during this session.  This was only moderately successful, so we returned to one flash after taking a few pictures.  After the color pictures, we switched cameras to one with a working zoom so that we could obtain images of higher quality.

In this picture, you can see that the blue flash went off after the red flash, since the shards are blue, while the bulb is red.

Home           Method and Setup           Photo Journal           Gallery            Conclusion

Below is the data for our pictures taken over the course of the project.