High Speed Imaging Journal
The epic tale of two Science and Math students in their quest to capture the perfect image of H2O and Liquid Nitrogen. Read below as they experience hardship, drama, near-death situations, and above all, learn the true meaning of life.
"Two dewars way up!"- Erbet and Reober. "This article made me see the light...the flash unit's light!" - Jim H. from TIME
Day 1, April 02, 2008
Ice Balloon
The beginning of the journey as the students began to test the ropes in the world of high speed imaging.
The Ice Balloon project was both a success and a failure. This was possible because we succeeded in performing our desired goal, but failed because the result was not as we had predicted. The goal of the project was to pop a water balloon above liquid nitrogen and to capture the image of some water freezing while the rest of the water was still in its liquid form.
After a rough start, with broken sound triggers and dead delay systems; we began by taking test pictures on a water balloon above an aquarium, using a Kodak Easyshare camera, a flash unit, and a sound trigger with a delay unit. By experimenting, we discovered that when the water balloon popped, it did not make a noise loud enough for the sound trigger. To fix this, we blew air into the balloons after filling them with water. We also added blood-red food dye to make the water stand out more against our black background.
Once all the preparations were made, we took the dewar and filled it with liquid nitrogen. When we returned, we began to notice the problems in our project. The first was figuring out how to pop a balloon over the liquid nitrogen without contaminating it
The only solution we could think of at the time was to pour the liquid nitrogen in a beaker. The trouble was that liquid nitrogen emits gas/mist when reacting with subjects that are of hotter temperatures. So the beaker was fuming away and the only way to contain it was by placing a fan near it. At the same time, the liquid nitrogen boils faster to reach equilibrium, so we had to quickly take the picture. We also had to use a plastic beaker to lift the beaker above the fish tank for a clearer image. After several failed attempts, we realized not to use so much liquid nitrogen. Finally, we managed to take a photograph that explained the error of our project.
When the red water hit the liquid nitrogen, it instantly freezes. The prediction was that the water would freeze in the mist and finally become solid with contact. However, we discovered that the water was not cold enough to freeze while traveling towards the liquid nitrogen. So we began to place the balloons into the liquid nitrogen. But the result was the same. Dismayed, we tried thinking of different things we could now do with liquid nitrogen. So we decided to use a splash box in order to photograph coloured water splashing in liquid nitrogen. We hope this will have better results, because it does not require a huge tank, it be less messy, we can take multiple photographs easily (unlike having to make the water balloons), and the water will make contact with the liquid nitrogen. The only thing I fear is that the mist will cloud the image and/or that there will not be enough water to make a splash. We only managed to set up the splash box and realized that the Kodak Easyshare is having a difficult time with capturing the image. So we completed the goal, but with unsatisfying results.
Day 2, April 03, 2008
Liquid Nitrogen Splash
With a day of defeat, but educational disappointment, behind them, the daring students ventured on to creating a new project. One not involving the deadly water balloons, which caused emotionally damaging red stains on their hearts; but rather, a new type of project. A splashingly good one.
Thursday came with mixed success. Similar to Wednesday, we had created a goal and had accomplished it, but once again, we received unsatisfying results. The goal today was to splash the water into liquid nitrogen and take a picture. The day mirrored yesterday, as we had numerous technical problems, such as trying to adjust the Kodak EasyShare to take a picture and eventually switching to the random shutter speed changing Nikon camera. We also encountered a dysfunctional water pipit. Eventually, everything settled, and we could finally take pictures. Our first attempt was utilizing a splash box and a bowl that came with it.
As you can tell, the result was not necessarily an eye catcher. Our process was to focus the camera and delay the flash so that the picture would show the tail or crown of the splash. Once we began, we had to take multiple test pictures before even attempting liquid nitrogen. When we used liquid nitrogen, we had to quickly put it in a bottle cap (because it was the smallest container that we could get clear shots from), and take multiple pictures.
However, most pictures were too hard to distinguish between liquid nitrogen and water, due to the coloured water's residue in the cup. So eventually we switched to clear water, which took another long process of retesting and practicing. We also began to freeze the cap.
We finally took the picture with the clear water, and we found interesting results. We had predicted that water would contact the liquid nitrogen and splash up, then go down, with the possibility that some of the drops may freeze. Instead, we did notice that liquid nitrogen reduced the splash height than normal water. But the effect was exactly the same: it was as if we just put water and splash it onto more water. The only differences were the mist of the liquid nitrogen and after a couple of seconds, the water froze. But we could not get any clear shots of this freezing (seeing it was almost instantaneous) or that of the original splash. This left us confused: we created another project and once again, we learned something completely different from what we had predicted. This led us to conclude that liquid nitrogen does not work well with cameras. As for trying another project, we sat down for quite a while and could not think of any other project.
Day 3, April 04, 2008
Abandoning hope, the two students were lost in despair. Two projects that don't work? How could this be? They questioned. "Our hands were burned by the liquid nitrogen, our eyes were blinded by the rapid flashing, our will power has been shattered by this Miniterm." But lo, from the midst of the rising liquid nitrogen mist, came the powerful figure that rallied their spirits. The one, Dr. Winters, proclaimed on the tops of his lungs: "This work is fascinating! The crowns, look at the way they splash! I have never seen such masterpieces."* And so, the two looked at the godly figure with their burnt eyeballs, more sockets now, and realized what must be done: a better high speed photograph must be taken. And so, they stated that they would finish the quest, no matter how poor the picture, how ugly the splash, or big of a mess they make. *Exaggeration for emphasis.
By today we had a good idea of the set-up and our method and we didn’t have to spend as much time experimenting with water before starting on the liquid nitrogen. After showing some of the pictures from the earlier attempts to the rest of the class, we had the suggestion to use a clear or opaque but smooth container to avoid the distraction that the rough edges of the bottle cap caused. To do this we took a watch glass and small beaker.
Because we couldn’t dip the watch glass into the liquid nitrogen and pull it out full, as we could with the bottle cap, we had to dip the small beaker into the nitrogen and poor it onto the watch glass. Doing this required wearing gloves, which kept sticking to the frozen beaker, pouring it on, and wrenching your hand away- all as quickly as possible. This lead to a few occasions where more nitrogen hit the table than the watch glass, but overall the problems with it were limited to having to peel a glass beaker off of gloves without ripping them.
One problem, though, was that the shallow watch glass held even less liquid nitrogen than the bottle cap, leaving an even shorter window to get the pictures. However, it also made it easier to see the progression of steam, going from a very large amount of it at first to next to nothing as the nitrogen was boiled away and the splashes were easily seen because the watch glass didn’t have any sides to get in the way of the picture. We also noticed that using two flashes created an interesting effect on the crown. Another effect we tried was to freeze the watch glass (by placing it into liquid nitrogen) before adding more liquid nitrogen and splashing on it.
We began to notice that liquid nitrogen affected the 'jewels' of the splash crown oddly. Obviously, the liquid nitrogen affect the splash height also, but it was the roundness of the jewels that surprised Dr. Winters, along with ourselves. At the very end, when we were satisfied with interesting pictures. In the very end, we were taking random shots when we happened to capture two interesting, but blurry pictures. The pictures below shocked us and confused us. There were trails on the droplets. Could this have been the freezing we had searched for from the beginning? We came to the assumption that the droplets were merely cutting through the mist from the liquid nitrogen, leaving a streak behind, but we are not sure.
And so, thus concludes the heroic adventure from two young, naïve students who knew only the basics of photography and have now become masters. Through this chronological journal, they hoped to show how they progressed from off centered, over exposed, and poor angled pictures to close up, correctly positioned, expert photographs. All of this they learned with a little bit of luck, a lot of determination, and from the guru called Dr. Winters. The moral of the story is: anyone can take a photograph. But only with the right equipment and purest hearts, can true photography can be taken. The two also learned that liquid nitrogen is evil and should only be handled by trained professionals with a high tolerance for cold and higher levels of patience.
© Copyright 2008 Vincent Bugica and Shay Lampron. All Rights Reserved.