# How to stop a bullet?



## revenater (Aug 12, 2012)

I am going shooting (with guns) later with my husband and some friends, I want to use this as a photo shoot also I want to freeze a bullet as it exit the barrel. So my question is what shutter speed and iso should I try? It is an overcast day so not much sun light and it will be in an open field. Any help would be appreciated. I shoot with a canon 5d mark II if that helps any.


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## Mach0 (Aug 12, 2012)

revenater said:
			
		

> I am going shooting (with guns) later with my husband and some friends, I want to use this as a photo shoot also I want to freeze a bullet as it exit the barrel. So my question is what shutter speed and iso should I try? It is an overcast day so not much sun light and it will be in an open field. Any help would be appreciated. I shoot with a canon 5d mark II if that helps any.



ISO would be whatever it took to get a properly exposed subject with fast shutter speed. I have never shot this before but if it were me, I'd spray and pray lol.


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## Animaniac888 (Aug 12, 2012)

Bump up your ISO as high as you can without murdering your image with noise and use the fastest shutter speed you can. Perhaps you could try to use a flash to freeze the bullet.


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## amolitor (Aug 12, 2012)

This is normally done with a strobe (flash) which is carefully synced to the firing of the gun. Given that a fairly slow bullet moves at 10,000ish bullet-lengths per second, you're not going to get a clear photo of the thing with any shutter speed, even if you can solve the synchronization problem (which you can't, without electronics or a great deal of luck, or a great number of trials, or all three).


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## cgipson1 (Aug 12, 2012)

^ What Amolitor said! Nearly impossible without the right gear!


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## revenater (Aug 12, 2012)

Ok thank you I guess camera stays at home this time around


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## bobandcar (Aug 12, 2012)

Hell just try it, so you mite have to delete a photo. 

Fastest shutter possible with a flash is what I would try.


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## revenater (Aug 12, 2012)

bobandcar
thanks I might do that my hubby wants pictures of him shooting his new pistol anyways.


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## AaronLLockhart (Aug 12, 2012)

good luck. even with a 1/8000 shutter this is next to impossible

http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/general-gallery/294975-muzzle-blast-recoil.html


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## table1349 (Aug 12, 2012)

Actually it isn't that hard, if you have a decent ability to build electrical devices or want to spend the money.  
Camera Axe


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## Stradawhovious (Aug 12, 2012)

cgipson1 said:


> ^ What Amolitor said! Nearly impossible without the right gear!



Shutter speed has nothing to do with it.  Even at 1/8,000 you wouldn't have any luck at all.  It's all about the light.


I have tried with normal speedlights..... Nikon B-600, SB-25, SB-28 etc, and none of them, even at their lowers power settings (shortest flash duration) are fast enough to even begin to capture a bullet in flight.  That would translate to about 1/30,000th of a second burst of light.

I've circled the bullet here......







This was with a sub sonic .22 out of a handgun.  The bullet speed on this was less than 500fps.  If you are shooting anything of a harder caliber than that, it will be moving MUCH faster.  .45 will be 800-900fps, 9mm will be moving 1,000fps or so etc.  If ou get into rifle country, a pill from a .30-06 will be moving close to 3,000fps.... so you can see the issue here.

Unless you have absolutely no ambient light, and a flash capable of over 1/100,000th of a second burst of light ($3,500+ microflash), I say you don't stand a chance.  Sorry!


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## AaronLLockhart (Aug 12, 2012)

Stradawhovious said:
			
		

> Shutter speed has nothing to do with it.  Even at 1/8,000 you wouldn't have any luck at all.  It's all about the light.
> 
> I have tried with normal speedlights..... Nikon B-600, SB-25, SB-28 etc, and none of them, even at their lowers power settings (shortest flash duration) are fast enough to even begin to capture a bullet in flight.  That would translate to about 1/30,000th of a second burst of light.
> 
> ...



You just said shutter speed has nothing to do with it, and then said that you would need a speedlight with 1/30,000 burst speed to capture it... Which would still require a shutter fast enough to capture it. 

So, please elaborate how shutter has nothing to do with it?


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## Stradawhovious (Aug 12, 2012)

revenater said:


> Ok thank you I guess camera stays at home this time around




Bring it!  You can get some great shots at the range!


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## usayit (Aug 12, 2012)

AaronLLockhart said:


> You just said shutter speed has nothing to do with it, and then said that you would need a speedlight with 1/30,000 burst speed to capture it... Which would still require a shutter fast enough to capture it.
> 
> So, please elaborate how shutter has nothing to do with it?



Flash photography has two exposures:

Ambient exposure which is framed by the Aperture and Shutter speed.
Flash exposure which is framed by the flash pulse and aperture.

In situations like fill, the photographer needs to take into account both exposures.  If you take ambient (as indicated by Stradawhovious) out of the picture then you are only working with flash exposure as the only light source is the short pulse from the flash.  In this case, you need a very short pulse of light to stop action the bullet in flight and an appropriate aperture.  Shutter settings play little to no role.


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## Stradawhovious (Aug 12, 2012)

AaronLLockhart said:


> You just said shutter speed has nothing to do with it, and then said that you would need a speedlight with 1/30,000 burst speed to capture it... Which would still require a shutter fast enough to capture it.
> 
> So, please elaborate how shutter has nothing to do with it?



High Speed photography 101.

If your only source of light is a 1/30,000th of a second burst of light, you shutter can be open for an hour and still get the same eposure as if it were only open for a fraction of a second.  Besides, the sync speed for any camera is generally not over 1/250th anyways.

All of these images were taken with long shutter speeds, and the only source of light was a short burst of light from the flash.  Much faster than any shtter speed my camera is capable of.

6.1 second shutter speed.






1/60th shutter speed.






1 second






1 second






2 seconds






I could go on, but I think those make the point.  Fact is, in this type of photography, shutter speed really has nothing to do with the image captured.  As long as the shutter is open when the light source fires, you will get the image, regardless of ho long it is open.

Now..... if there was enough ambient light to affect the exposure, all of the above would be nothing more than a blur.


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## cgipson1 (Aug 12, 2012)

AaronLLockhart said:


> Stradawhovious said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Shutter speed only has to be wide enough to capture the burst of light... and sync with it. You may have notice that max sync speed on good bodies is at 1/250? (unless you go into High Speed Sync). If you shutter is open for 1/100, and the flash with a 1/30,000 duration goes off somewhere in the 1/100 of a second, you caught the flash. Get it? Shutter speed will capture Ambient light... so you can control ambient exposure and backgounds with shutter speed. For high speed photography,  you want to minimize any ambient light exposure, as it will cause blur

Aperture is more important when using flash.. it determines how much flash hits the sensor!

EDIT: hahaha.. should have read further down.. already been said! I was hoping Strad would see this thread, since he has been playing with high speed photography lately.


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## MLeeK (Aug 12, 2012)

Kevlar. 



I am just interested in seeing what you come up with as you are experimenting!


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## AaronLLockhart (Aug 12, 2012)

MLeeK said:
			
		

> Kevlar.
> 
> I am just interested in seeing what you come up with as you are experimenting!



Best answer ever.


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## MLeeK (Aug 12, 2012)

I couldn't believe that someone hadn't already said it!


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## table1349 (Aug 12, 2012)

Bullet Photography At Home | DIYPhotography.net


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## Steve5D (Aug 12, 2012)

My first thought upon seeing the thread title was "with the body of someone you don't like".

Question for Strad: The explanation you gave made sense. How do you fire the flash, though, to ensure that you're firing it at the point-of-impact?


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## jamesbjenkins (Aug 12, 2012)

Not possible without gear to sync the camera and flash to the trigger pull.

Your typical 9mm round exits the barrel at around 1200 ft/second. Even with the very best of luck, you're only going to get a very blurry bullet and completely uninspiring composition.

Now if you just want to catch some cool muzzle flash, that's fairly easy...


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## Stradawhovious (Aug 12, 2012)

Steve5D said:


> Question for Strad: The explanation you gave made sense. How do you fire the flash, though, to ensure that you're firing it at the point-of-impact?



Sound trigger. Takes some trial and errror to figure out, but they're hella fun.


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## Steve5D (Aug 12, 2012)

jamesbjenkins said:


> Not possible without gear to sync the camera and flash to the trigger pull.
> 
> Your typical 9mm round exits the barrel at around 1200 ft/second. Even with the very best of luck, you're only going to get a very blurry bullet and completely uninspiring composition.
> 
> Now if you just want to catch some cool muzzle flash, that's fairly easy...



I was actually asking in regards to, say, the photos of the eggs shattering. They're not going to be shattering and expanding at 1,200 pfs.

I'm gonna' have to look into these sound trigger things. They sound like they could lend themselves to some fun...


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## table1349 (Aug 12, 2012)

That's why I like the Camera Axe 5 I posted the link too.  Multi-trigger device that you can purchase built or build from a kit yourself and save money.


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## revenater (Aug 12, 2012)

May not have stop a bullet but I consider the day a success. I had a blast shooting both my camera and my pistol and I got this great shot of my husband's pistol.


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## Stradawhovious (Aug 12, 2012)

revenater said:


> May not have stop a bullet but I consider the day a success. I had a blast shooting both my camera and my pistol and I got this great shot of my husband's pistol.
> View attachment 16649



Nice!  Glad you had fun, and glad you brought your camera!


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## Animaniac888 (Aug 12, 2012)

At least you managed to stop the shell.


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## revenater (Aug 12, 2012)

Yes and that works for me. Since its impossible to stop the bullet I will settle for the casing.


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## Stradawhovious (Aug 12, 2012)

revenater said:


> Yes and that works for me. Since its impossible to stop the bullet I will settle for the casing.



Not impossible. Just interestingly improbable without the right tools.


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## Garbz (Aug 13, 2012)

To actually freeze a bullet takes a lot more effort than sound triggers and speedlights. The speedlight is too slow as people have already pointed out, but furthermore the speed of sound + electronics delay will result in the event being missed. 

Typical frozen bullet shots are done using an air-gap flash and a wire trigger. An air-gap flash basically is a bolt of lightning between two electrodes, it sounds like lightning and the duration is VERY short and very bright. A wire trigger is exactly what it sounds like. A wire. The bullet breaks the wire as it goes through and the air-gap flash triggers. This gives you consistency and you don't need to mess with the speed of sound.


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## Stradawhovious (Aug 13, 2012)

Garbz said:


> To actually freeze a bullet takes a lot more effort than sound triggers and speedlights. The speedlight is too slow as people have already pointed out, but furthermore the speed of sound + electronics delay will result in the event being missed.
> 
> Typical frozen bullet shots are done using an air-gap flash and a wire trigger. An air-gap flash basically is a bolt of lightning between two electrodes, it sounds like lightning and the duration is VERY short and very bright. A wire trigger is exactly what it sounds like. A wire. The bullet breaks the wire as it goes through and the air-gap flash triggers. This gives you consistency and you don't need to mess with the speed of sound.



Sound triggers would work in handgun rounds that are subsonic (_some_ .22, .45 ACP, _some_ 9mm etc,) as I pointed out in a picture on the previous page, but you're right in that they are much, much less than idea and all but useless in the world of hypersonic rounds (1,100fps or faster). I've also heard of laser photogate triggers being used effectively.

All things considered, you're still talking about a major expense on specialty equipment that most photographers would never use. Especially with the light source. Personally I hope to own this stuff someday, but my budget and my wife tend to think otherwise.


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