Thursday, July 12, 2007

Thursday's Tech: Hacking NASCAR: The Ultimate High-Speed Photography Kit


Rick Graves can stop time. OK, not really, but he can freeze 43 NASCAR racers clocking almost 200 mph. How? The pro shooter modified his Hasselblad into what he calls a DistaCam — adding a high-velocity motor, locking the shutter open, and inserting a metal plate with a laser-cut slit. Whenever Graves triggers the motor, film zips past the slit at up to 1,400 rpm, capturing stills of the speeding cars. "Failure is a necessity," he says, "and a lot of times, success is luck."


4 Steps to Shooting Stills at 200 mph:

http://www.wired.com/gadgets/digitalcameras/magazine/15-07/st_nascar