Watch the video. Definitely one of the coolest projects I have ever worked on. We asked readers what worried them and then wrote those worries on pumpkins and blew them up! I felt like I was on the show Myth Busters all week. DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME. All of these photos were taken under the supervision of experienced professionals.
Click the image above to watch the video on the Journal website.
Aside from the the joy of destroying pumpkins this also gave me a chance to take extreme high-speed photos. I’ve wanted to do this for a long time. You see when a flash is set to its lowest power setting the flash duration becomes extremely fast. On Kevin Lewis’ Blog I found that a Canon Speedlite at 1/128th power has a flash duration of 1/35,000 sec.
This means that whatever is caught by your flash is “frozen” at 1/35,000 sec since the flash is the only light exposing it. In order to do this though you need to keep the ambient light out either by shooting in the dark or shooting at a high aperture like f22 so the only light hitting the object is flash.
Here you see two hammers. That’s because the sound trigger set off the flash when the the hammer hit the pumpkin and then again when it hit the table. There was a 0.2 second delay set for the sound trigger.
A pumpkin is frozen in liquid nitrogen by Matt Green, Staff Interpreter. left and Frank Florian, Director of Public Programs at the Telus World of Science in Edmonton on October 2, 2009. Photo by Ryan Jackson / Edmonton Journal
Here is the setup for the frozen pumpkin shot. I built a sound trigger and plugged it into my Pocketwizard Multimax so I could set a delay from the time the sound was made till the time the flashes went off. The problem with this method is that it takes a lot of trial and error to get the time delay right and we only had three pumpkins.
The sound trigger circuit is just a simple 400V SCR circuit connected to the headphone output of my audio recorder which simply acts as a mic and amplifier.
Now we move on to the exploding pumpkins! Dr. Roy Jensen with the Chemistry Department at Grant MacEwan was very excited to help me with this project. I can’t tell you what he used to blow up the pumpkins but I can say that it was in a balloon and ignited with an electric sparker. Roy also had the very important idea to score (slice) up the inside of the pumpkin with a knife so that it blew up semetrically. We also put a little bit of corn starch in the balloons to add a powdery haze.
This is actually a frame grab from my Canon XH-A1. The camera was set to 1/500th shutter speed and shot in 60i. Though it “caught the moment” the quality isn’t there.
Can you tell the difference? I was amazed what a camera shooting 10 fps can catch in an explosion. It’s not as much about the explosion (which only lasts microseconds) but the re-action after.
Frame grab.
Still image. Three flashes. Just awesome!
Frame grab again. The next frame after this one is at the top of this post.
For the exploding pumpkins in the MacEwan University Chemistry lab I didn’t bother with the sound trigger. Instead I just had a Canon 1D Mark-III bursting at 10 fps and a Mark-IIn bursting at 8 fps. Since the cameras have a 2 fps speed difference they fired out of sync which means I was getting about 18 fps of stills combined.
I doubled up the flashes so that I would only need two stands instead of four. One camera had two flashes and was triggered by Pocketwizard Flex 5′s and the other one had three flashes that were all hard wired. Both sets of flashes fired every time with no problem. The Pocketwizards fired just as good as the hard-wired flashes. The flashes were at 1/128th power and zoomed to 24mm.
The cameras were both set at 1/250th (sync) shutter speed, F22, ISO400 so there wasn’t any ambient light in the exposure. Only flash which lasted 1/35,000 sec thus freezing the explosions.
Here you can see the Canon XH-A1 video camera, the Canon 1D Mark-III and the 1D-Mark IIn. There was also a Canon HV20 video camera and a Canon SD960 IS point and shoot camera on video mode. The cameras were tiggered by Pocketwizards so I could stand a safe distance back.
As you can see the pumpkins did a little damage to the ceiling. There…was….pumpkin…..EVERYWHERE!
Now for the shotgun photos.
This photo was done with two flashes. One to the left and one to the right.
This photo was ambient light at 1/2000 sec.
For the shotgun photos I did a similar setup as the exploding pumpkins. Three video cameras and two still cameras shooting a combined 18 fps.
I placed a sheet of plexy glass in front of the line of cameras incase a pellet from the shotgun went astray. (Just being paranoid.)
Here you can see the two video cameras (the third one was used to take this photo), the two still cameras and three flashes. One camera had two flashes and the other one only had one.
Finally you can see the black king-sized bed sheet that I used for a backround. I bought the sheet at Walmart for cheap and then draped it over a monopod superclamped to a light stand.
Posted by ryanjackson on Oct 12, 2009 in photos, wedding
What a great idea! We did engagement photos back in July at Capital Ex and then the wedding reception was at the 1920′s Midway at Fort Edmonton Park. The guests were all entertained and it made for some great photos. Enjoy!
Posted by ryanjackson on Oct 11, 2009 in photos, wedding
I got to shoot two weddings at Fort Edmonton Park this summer! Katalin and Stefan had their ceremony and reception at the Hotel Selkirk on 1920′s street.
Katalin is an astrophysicist and Stefan is working on his PhD in marine microbiology. Last year when that meteorite landed near Lloydminster Katalin and Stefan went searching for fragments and found two pieces. So of course I shot their rings with the meteorites.
Chris Gingell blow dries Tamarindo Precious Jewel the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel during the Edmonton Kennel Club annual fall all-breed dog show at Northlands AgriCom in Edmonton on October 10, 2009. Photo by Ryan Jackson / Edmonton Journal
Old English sheep dog Paris checks out her owner Linda Smith’s jacket during the Edmonton Kennel Club annual fall all-breed dog show at Northlands AgriCom in Edmonton on October 10, 2009. Photo by Ryan Jackson / Edmonton Journal
Cooper, a 16-months-old Great Dane goes in for a smooch with five-year-old Piper Didier during the Edmonton Kennel Club annual fall all-breed dog show at Northlands AgriCom in Edmonton on October 10, 2009. Photo by Ryan Jackson / Edmonton Journal
Rowan, a Welsh Pembroke Corgi peaks his interest during the Edmonton Kennel Club annual fall all-breed dog show at Northlands AgriCom in Edmonton on October 10, 2009. Photo by Ryan Jackson / Edmonton Journal
Guinness the Great Dane says hello to Chiquita the Chihuahua during the Edmonton Kennel Club annual fall all-breed dog show at Northlands AgriCom in Edmonton on October 10, 2009. Photo by Ryan Jackson / Edmonton Journal
One-year-old Elvis the chihuahua looks up at his owner Linda Gerke during the Edmonton Kennel Club annual fall all-breed dog show at Northlands AgriCom in Edmonton on October 10, 2009. Photo by Ryan Jackson / Edmonton Journal
Yorkshire Terrier Digger doesn’t look impressed after taking a bath during the Edmonton Kennel Club annual fall all-breed dog show at Northlands AgriCom in Edmonton on October 10, 2009. Photo by Ryan Jackson / Edmonton Journal
Five-year-old Iggy the Old English Sheep Dog doesn’t mind the view during the Edmonton Kennel Club annual fall all-breed dog show at Northlands AgriCom in Edmonton on October 10, 2009. Photo by Ryan Jackson / Edmonton Journal
Two-year-old Sedona the doberman takes a walk with owner Alison Merrick during the Edmonton Kennel Club annual fall all-breed dog show at Northlands AgriCom in Edmonton on October 10, 2009. Photo by Ryan Jackson / Edmonton Journal
Murphy the bulldog gets up close and personal with owner Holley Kroonen behind during the Edmonton Kennel Club annual fall all-breed dog show at Northlands AgriCom in Edmonton on October 10, 2009. Photo by Ryan Jackson / Edmonton Journal
Posted by ryanjackson on Oct 10, 2009 in photos, video
Don Metz, President and CEO of Aquila Productions directs people during rehearsal for the opening ceremonies of The Edmonton Oilers season opener at Rexall Place in Edmonton on October 3, 2009. Photo by Ryan Jackson / Edmonton Journal
Take a behind the scenes look at the dress rehearsal for the opening ceremonies for the Edmonton Oilers season opener with Don Metz of Aquila Productions on October 3, 2009. Video by Ryan Jackson / Edmonton Journal
A helicopter crew does some maintenance on a transmission line tower along Anthony Henday Drive on October 6, 2009. Photo by Ryan Jackson / Edmonton Journal
I remember my photojournalism instructor Frank O’Connor once telling the class that if you ever shoot a helicopter be sure to drop your shutter speed down or else it will look strange. Why? Well if you shoot at 1/2000 sec shutter speed for example then the helicopter blades will be perfectly frozen and it will look as if they aren’t turning.
Instead shoot at something like 1/250th of a second and then the blades will have a little bit of motion blur on them, making the helicopter look more realistic.
A pumpkin frozen by liquid nitrogen is smashed by Frank Florian, Director of Public Programs at the Telus World of Science in Edmonton on October 2, 2009. Photo by Ryan Jackson / Edmonton Journal
Here is my DIY Tilt-Shift lens. It is a 75mm f2.8 medium format lens I bought off ebay for $30 plus a $5 toilet plunger that I cut down.
I inserted the lens inside the plunger and wrapped black hockey tape around it. I then superglued a Canon EOS body cap on the back of it.
If you build this yourself be sure to cut small holes in the bellows to allow air to escape. The first time I used this lens I wrecked the shutter in my Mark-II because of the air pressure! I didn’t use it for two years because of that. I finally just cut two holes and now it works fine.
You have to use a medium format lens for this (35mm lenses won’t work) because MF lenses produce a larger imaging circle and are meant to be positioned farther away from the “film” (sensor) of the camera.
I used this lens for this and this picture. Notice how the face is in focus and the rest is out of focus. That is because I tilted the lens so that so that the plane of focus crosses the face. Since nothing else falls in the plane of focus it goes out of focus ( a.k.a. bokeh).
It’s an artsy effect and can come in handy but this isn’t a lens you can use all the time.
Rowan, a Welsh Pembroke Corgi peaks his interest during the Edmonton Kennel Club annual fall all-breed dog show at Northlands AgriCom in Edmonton on October 10, 2009. Photo by Ryan Jackson / Edmonton Journal
