Description

Welcome GFXers! Here's my latest piece titled "Instance!"

Motivated and dedicated to: Edisons Nightmare by  Gwarfi

I decided to give it my own twist. I've put together this sequence of shots to give you an idea just how mysterious the smoke is in such a small amount of time. These images were shot at 200ms apart, equivalent to 5fps.

My next experiment will use an optical slave unit to detect the flash from my camera to trigger the switch to power the bulb, as the camera is shooting a sequence of 5fps. This would control the shooting variable. I will also try it with the D70 set to 1/500 second flash sync to see if I can't get the smoke just a bit sharper as well.

Tools Used:
Nikon D200 DSLR (10.2MP)
Nikon Speedlight SB-600 (Flash Unit/Slave Unit)
Bogen/Manfrotto Tripod (Camera)
JTL Studio Strobes
Black Velvet (Background)
5A 125V fuses
40W 120V clear ceiling fan bulbs
Misc wire and other small household parts
& too much time on one's hands!

Science & Techno-Babble:
The physics of this project make it interesting. A light bulb is sealed in a vacuum when it's produced in a factory, eliminating all oxygen from the glass. The tungsten fillament cannot be exposed to O2 when powered. When you break the glass, obviously it's exposed to oxygen. When applying power from a standard 110/220 outlet, the fillament lasts only a fraction of a second. Applied voltage determines how long the fillament will last.

The goal here was to photograph the sequence from the time power was first applied to the time the bulb had completely burned out. We (my Dad and I) had setup the studio with my JTL Strobes at a height of appx. 6 feet on the left and right both facing about 45 degrees down. The bulb glass was broken using a vice to control shatter and hopefully protect the delicate fillament. Once done, the bulb was soldered to two copper wires, one at the base and one on the outter ring of the bulbs electrode. The copper wires were clamped to a board which rested on a third tripod (for mounting purposes). The copper wires were then hooked up to a switch connected to a standard 110V outlet.

How-To:
My Camera was set on a tripod, using my Nikon Speedlight as a slave unit to trigger the studio strobes @ 5 frames per second (200ms per frame). Conveniently, my particular strobes could handle about 3-4 fps before blowing it's 5A 125V fuse. Needless to say, this experiment took several tests and many fuses/bulbs were used just to set up the stage for the final product.

As always, C/C is welcome and I thank you folks for taking the time to check out my latest piece! Enjoy!

*Please see the larger version for greater detail. Sorry about the watermark, but I just hate thieves!*

Tommyguns