As a gun enthusiast and photography hobbiest I found ita challenge to try and capture a picture of a bullet in flight. My equipmentconsisted of a Pentax ME 35 mm camera, auto exsposer flash , home madesound actuator and a 357 magnum handgun.

Firstly I started with a lot of thinking on the problem. Howto capture a bullet in flight with a regular camera? A little pre thinkinggoes a long ways on a project like this, as I had no previous experiencein photography of any kind other than your tipical family picture taking.

My fastest shutter setting on the camera was one two thousndsof a second. Not near fast enough to stop a 357 magnum bullet travellingapproximately 1100 ft/sec. I knew I must use the bulb setting which isthe shutter locked open. This means the exposer must be done with the flashand in a completely dark enviroment. The auto exposer flash automaticallyadjusted the exposer time based on the light reflected back to the photocell just below the flash window of the exion flash tube. As soon as enoughlight is reflected by the subject back to the flash an internal circuit,a thyrister, shorts out the flash tube to expose the picture perfectlyevery time, which I knew worked great from the pictures taken previouslywith this camera and flash. Normally in a completley dark room the flash,if triggered, would have a long exposer time, in the order of one sixtiethof a second. Fine for slow moving subjects but not a bullet.

The answer was as simple as a piece of tin fioil, arched betweenthe very bottom portion of the flash window and the photo eye. This waywhen the flash was triggered light would immediatley be reflected to theeye and shut the flash tube off in the shortest time possable. This shouldgive an exposer time as short as a flash tube can create which turns outto be very fast. I estimate about one one millionth of a second. Ah, thatshould stop anything, even a bullet. Sound seemed to be the ovious triggersource from a gun so I made a simple sound activated flash trigger usinga small electronic amplifier with a mic at the input and an SCR, siliconcontrolled rectifier, at the output. The SCR is like a electronic switchwhich was used to trigger the flash unit.

OK thats it! The gun was mounted in a vice and pointed at abackstop sufficiant for a 357 magnum. All lights out including ambientlight. Camera and flash aimed at the expected bullet path with a backdropof cardboard to allow the bullet to show against the background. Microphoneset the distance away from the gun, the same as the distance I wanted tosee the bullet out of the gun. This turned out to be almost the same dueto the bullet velocity, 1100 ft/sec and the speed of sound, 1089 ft/secbeing almost equal.

I must admit I amazed myself as the pictures here were takenwith the first 20 exposer, Kodak ASA 400 colour film, and first attempt.

Maybe someone can use this idea in a new way for some otherhigh speed photography. It sure was fun. My friends still think the picturesare fake and done with computer graphics, but not so!