SINGLE FLASH PICTURES

Evening Star, Issue 23724, 4 November 1940, Page 2

SINGLE FLASH PICTURES

NEW STROBOSCOPE EXPERIMENTS People who have been attracted by some of the “single flash" pictures taken at great speed, showing a drop of milk falling and separating, or a golt club swinging, or a hall in flight, may now expect to have the whole process revealed to them shortly on the screen (writes Frank Dougherty in tha ‘ Christian Science Monitor ’). Pete Smith, Metro’s short subject specialist, who ordinarily confines himself to humour but sometimes delves into more serious subjects, has invited Harold E. Edgertou, assistant professor of engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, ,to bring his stroboscope experiments to Hollywood and put them into a picture. Some of the “ stunts being developed include a football being kicked* a golf ball being photographed as it is knocked throdgh a phone book, a cat drinking milk (Dr Edgertou says this one will surprise a great many people, who only think they know how a cat drinks milk); cards being shuffled, and a girl jumping rope. There ; will be others, of course, and perhaps.some of tlidse mentioned will be cnscafcled before the picture is done. Dr Edgertou savs Mr Smith is being careful to make the picture as different as possible from slow motion film, which, audiences already know. Thirty-five millimetre exposures will he at the rate of 2,000 a second; 3 mm. will he considerably higher, about 6,000 a second. This has the effect of stopping motion completely at various stages, revealing action much too quick for the eye. It also does away with one of the oldest methods of motion pictures photographed ‘on film, since it eliminates the shutter and lets the film go through without stopping.. The light flashes of the new method are fast enough to “freeze” the image on the continuously moving’ film passing through the camera at 75 feet, or more, a second. The camera and lights were developed by Dr Edgertou in association with Kenneth J. Germeshausen and Herbert E. Grier, of M.I.T. But the stroboscope itself is not new, of course. It is being manufactured now, according to Dr Edgertou, quite extensively for use indndustry, and especially in the automotive industry, where it is used for exact observation of the workings of valves, oil circulation, fan blades, vibration of fenders, snubbers, rear ends,etc.

It has even found some use before now in the motion picture industry, ■where the sound departments have used it, among other things, for measuring the “ flutter ” in sprockets, and to observo the action of film winding through! a camera.

One of the most interesting phase* of tho process, and one which will b* magnified and accentuated in the motion picture, will be the aesthetic and mathematical phases of stroboscopio photography. Bubbles breaking, and smoko blowing through fans, forming beautiful vortexes about the blades, allow the spectator to derive an resthetio uleasure from swift motion.

Dr Edgerton doesn’t expect his process to revolutionise the making of motion pictures. As it is slow motion cranked at 10 times the speed of present slow motion photography, it can hardly have uses to which slow motion has not already been applied. Buii it can heighten and develop the effect* already obtained by that process. He has greater hope for the “ singl* flash ” picture than for the motion picture development, at present. Single flash pictures taken by this process daf not require the disturbing light effects of flashlight pictures, are sharper, and allow as many as three or four camera* to work from the same light at the same time, with 10-second intervals between photographs. He hopes that newspapers will come to make larger use of the single flash than they have. One large chain of newspapers already has bought a number of the lights.. At present, he says, most newspaper* consider the new photography merely a “ stunt.” One newspaper manager told him: “ You’ve already taken all the good pictures. There’s nothing left to take.”

Dr Edgerton believes they haven’t even begun to tap the possibilities of still photography with this method.